Jump to content

Search the Community

Showing results for tags 'Review'.

  • Search By Tags

    Type tags separated by commas.
  • Search By Author

Content Type


Forums

  • Forums
    • General Nintendo
    • General Gaming
    • Power On

Find results in...

Find results that contain...


Date Created

  • Start

    End


Last Updated

  • Start

    End


Filter by number of...

Joined

  • Start

    End


Group


About Me


Member Title


Nintendo Switch


Nintendo 3DS


Nintendo Network


PlayStation Network


Xbox Live


Steam


Discord


Twitter

  1. With a combination of veteran experience and start-up ambition, indie developer Metronomik's debut game throws players into a futuristic world of music and rhythmic action. No Straight Roads stars an indie rock duo trying to make it big in a city that values EDM over any other genre, leading to clashes with the ruling musical elites and a rising swell of underground rock. Ultimately though this blend of action-platforming and stylish design is a bit out of tune. Our protagonists, Mayday and Zuke, perform as the rock duo Bunk Bed Junction in Vinyl City, where music literally provides power to the electrical grid. However, the record label No Straight Roads decides that rock music is passé and only EDM should be allowed, spurring our heroes to fight back in the name of musical freedom. It's a fun setting with larger-than-life characters that are a little goofy but also undeniably charming. However, the story never feels like it reaches its potential. Maybe it's just because the game is relatively short, but the inventive setting is rife with possibilities that aren't fully explored by the game. The gameplay of No Straight Roads focuses around big, creative boss fights with third-person action-adventure mechanics. You can play as either Mayday or Zuke with two-player co-op or you can play solo and swap between the two at any time (though if one dies it's game over when playing alone). Mayday has slightly slower but more powerful attacks with her guitar, while Zuke has weaker but faster, combo-driven attacks with his drumsticks. They also have special attacks and can transform objects in the environment with the power of music. Mayday's abilities tend to focus on offense while Zuke's are built for defense. You're able to upgrade their abilities via skill trees that unlock as you gain a fan following, as well as augment their stats with stickers slapped on their instruments. They make a solid team and even when playing alone the ability to swap between them helps cover their weaknesses. Between boss fights you can explore a small hub area of Vinyl City then dive into each boss's district by fighting your way through a short level of minor enemies and barriers. It really feels like these boss lead-ups were an underdeveloped idea thrown in late in development. You only ever fight against a couple of different enemy types in these stages, they're incredibly linear, and are all structured in the same exact way which doesn't feel thematically appropriate for each boss. They at least give you an opportunity to practice your attacking and dodging skills, but overall they feel like busywork. The real stars of the game are the boss fights which throw you into some insane and inventive duels that really test your dodging skills and endurance. These battles are over the top in a great way and show off some incredible arena and combat design. They're also pretty tedious at times, thanks to the unrelenting difficulty. You might not expect it from the game's colorful art style, but these boss fights can be downright cruel, whether it's from a barrage of attacks that forces you to do nothing but dodge or from the massive amount of damage you can take from a single hit. Early on the game gives you infrequent opportunities to rest or restore health through random item drops, though eventually both characters learn skills to recover health. Even then, boss fights really test the limit of your skills since every boss has multiple forms and there are no checkpoints, so dying restarts the entire fight. The controls aren't doing much to help with the uneven sense of difficulty either. Your movements are pretty loose, which doesn't feel great for the precision dodging you need to do at times. The camera is a huge pain since it is either too sensitive when you have full control over it, or it's fixed during boss fights, oftentimes at an angle that makes it hard to dodge or land your own attacks. The Switch version of No Straight Roads also seems to have a handful of small technical issues as well, none of which were game-breaking in my experience but they were annoying. For one thing the framerate is a little inconsistent and the hub world has a lot of visual pop-in. I also ran into several small glitches like not being able to jump unless I swapped characters, or the health bar displaying the wrong character. At minimum the game clearly could have used a bit more polish. No Straight Roads is also a fairly short game. The adventure is structured around the big boss fights, and there are only six in total—most players will finish in about six hours. There is a bit of variety to the game depending on what skills you pick from the skill tree or what sticker upgrades you use, plus there's a focus on replaying boss fights at higher difficulty levels to earn more fans, which allows you to unlock more skills. It's obviously repetitive to do that though, and some of these bosses are annoying enough to fight once. The Switch version of the game also has some unique features, including a touch mode and a three player assist mode which can help alleviate some of the boss battle frustration. The game's presentation is obviously the highlight here—how could it not be, when the focus of the story is on music-based battles? The soundtrack is pretty fantastic, whether you favor rock or EDM, as both are represented with tons of great songs that you can't help but bob your head to, even if you're getting destroyed in the boss fights. The music is incredibly catchy and shows a lot of range even within the two main genres on display here. The voice acting deserves some recognition as well for bringing these wild characters to life, including in songs and rap battles. The visuals of No Straight Roads is also super stylish, with an exaggerated cartoonish design that is colorful and chaotic and somehow perfect for these characters and this setting. Even if the technical aspect of the visuals is a little lacking on the Switch, the art design is just plain fun and is at its full power during the massive, intense boss fights. No Straight Roads' only real fault is being overambitious. Unfortunately that means a lot of gameplay elements feel unpolished or unfocused, and too much of the game plays like a rough draft rather than a fully realized experience. And although the Switch version comes with some fun extra features not found in other versions, it also comes with some technical issues as well. The game still oozes style and personality though, and for some players the rocking soundtrack and colorful, cartoonish visual design will be enough to justify giving No Straight Roads a shot on the main stage. Rating: 7 out of 10 Bands
  2. Take the Metroidvania formula for 2D exploration, sprinkle in some Dark Souls influence, and wrap it all up in a twisted, macabre world of Christian lore and Spanish art and you get Blasphemous, a dark and striking action-platformer from developer The Game Kitchen. Originally Kickstarted in 2017, the game drew attention for its haunting sense of style and classic gameplay elements. The final result is a game that leans a little too far toward punishment rather than penitence, but Metroidvania fans looking for a challenge should be pleased regardless. You play as the Penitent One, a nameless, voiceless, masked figure set on a pilgrimage to find the Cradle of Affliction and potentially break the cycle of death and rebirth that binds the Brotherhood of the Silent Sorrow and seemingly all the world of Cvstodia. Blasphemous draws heavily from Christian iconography and Spanish art to create a world of dark, twisted repentance and punishment that is fascinating to explore though feels a bit disjointed at times. The game throws a lot of information at you initially and then only brings it up again sparingly which makes it a little hard to follow at times when you hear names of individuals and groups mentioned casually. There's clearly some great lore and world-building happening behind the scenes here, it just doesn't come through well enough while you're playing. Still, even if the narrative feels a bit unpolished, the atmosphere of the game is undeniable. Blasphemous is a classic 2D Metroidvania game—leaning a little more toward the Castlevania side of things thanks to its religious symbolism—with some light Souls elements. That means you've got a massive, interconnected map to explore with tons of secrets to uncover, including equippable upgrades and opportunities to raise your health, magic, or strength. Save points are scattered around at fairly regular intervals which act as respawn points if—or rather when—you die, and using a save point also causes all defeated enemies to respawn. The Souls influence comes from the fact that, when you die, you lose a little piece of yourself. Your maximum mana (or Fervor as it is called in the game) is lowered and you'll earn less EXP (aka Tears of Atonement, which is also currency) until you return to the place you died and recover what you lost. Essentially, Blasphemous provides a classic Metroidvania experience with the difficulty tuned a little higher to the kind of tense challenge that Souls games are known for, but thankfully not overwhelmingly difficult. The cycle of dying and retrying isn't as punishing as in Souls games, and the combat system has a decent amount of fluidity and action to it. You can easily get your attacks in and dodge away with some lithe movements. That said, the combat system still expects a lot out of the player. Even basic enemies can do a lot of damage so any hits you take will hurt a lot, which means the only real strategy oftentimes is a very basic cycle of attack, dodge, repeat. This can make your first couple hours with the game particularly frustrating while you're still learning enemy attack patterns and don't have a lot of health to spare, and makes combat feel pretty repetitive even against different types of enemies. The game instead builds tension out of the need to reach the next save point where you can recover health and refill your healing potions. It definitely makes progress feel satisfying when you reach the next checkpoint, though it can be a bit too formulaic as well. Thorough exploration is a must in a Metroidvania game since you may be rewarded with various upgrades or side quests. In Blasphemous, you can customize your abilities with various upgrades or magic spells. There's a decent amount of variety that helps make your approach feel a bit unique even though the focus of combat is always on sword attacks. Side quests will reward you with some particularly useful items, including abilities that help you explore every inch of Cvstodia, but actually finding and completing side quests is frustratingly obtuse in Blasphemous. There's no kind of quest log so it's hard to remember what exactly you need to bring where, and that's when the game gives you any kind of clue at all. Oftentimes you'll find an item with no explanation for what it is meant to do and can only hope that you'll stumble upon its use at some point. Maybe the developers just want you to earn these rewards on your own, but a little more direction would have gone a long way. Surprisingly though, the biggest threat in Blasphemous is the platforming. It is absurdly easy to die by falling or being knocked into a bottomless pit or a spike trap, which is instant death no matter your health. The game really pushes the edge of your character's jumping range at times, and of course some enemies are just perfectly positioned to knock you off of a cliff's edge. You don't quite have the kind of fluid platformer movement to justify such punishing hazards. These kinds of instant death traps pose just as much danger even when you're far into the game and have plenty of upgrades, and are really just an obnoxious obstacle to exploration. The visual design of Blasphemous is easily the first thing that is going to stand out for you when you start playing. The world of Cvstodia is haunting, filled with grotesque religious iconography twisted into a bleak and hostile environment. This is all accomplished with some high quality sprite work which kind of makes it all the more impressive. The animation is smooth and fluid and the design is foreboding, perfect for the atmosphere that Blasphemous is creating. The music is a bit less striking since much of it is aimed more toward a low, background atmosphere vibe. It's not as in-your-face as the visual design is, and can be rather forgettable at times. Still, it's a decent soundtrack, even if it's not outstanding. The game also, surprisingly, features some voice acting, though the quality is a bit inconsistent. Blasphemous takes players on a harrowing adventure through a twisted world of penitence and punishment that may lean toward the latter a little too often. The combat can be challenging but manageable with some patience, but the platforming is downright cruel when it comes to instant death traps. Exploration can prove a bit too aimless when it comes to side quests, and even for the main quest it can be hard to know what to do thanks to opaque item descriptions. However, players willing to overlook some of the rougher edges of the game will find a stylish Metroidvania in Blasphemous, one that truly makes you earn every inch of progress you make toward redemption. Rating: 7 out of 10 Blasphemies
  3. The long-running rumors proved true and Nintendo celebrated 35 years of Mario platforming with a new All-Stars collection. Super Mario 3D All-Stars repackages Mario's first three 3D platforming adventures into one convenient Switch title, bringing with it some visual upgrades and controller adjustments to make each of Mario's landmark games more playable in 2020. It's easy to have wished for more out of this re-release collection, but in the end it still brings together not just wonderful pieces of Mario's history but three fantastic games to boot. Super Mario 64 Starting off with the original 3D Mario platformer, Super Mario 64 has the most significant visual upgrade in this collection—the game is 24 years old at this point after all. Smoothing out the original 64 graphics into crisp HD looks great, though obviously the game is still block and polygonal. Plus the simplicity of a lot of the textures is more glaring in full 720p. Technical looks aside, the visual style of Super Mario 64 is still absolutely charming. Blocky Goombas and Koopa Troopas may be simple but they have a delightful quality all their own. The gameplay also holds up in a lot of ways as a fantastically engaging transition to 3D platforming. The variety of challenges the game throws at you is excellent. There are plenty of stars that are simple to acquire, but there are just as many that provide unique challenges or clever ways of using 3D space, which was pretty novel in 1996. The level design is inventive, and oftentimes it's just fun to run around or try to explore with ridiculous chains of jumps. That said, there are some notable weak points in the game as well. The camera is the most obvious offender. It probably would have been asking too much to completely revamp the camera controls since it would impact how you collect a lot of stars as well, but it's a real adjustment trying to handle this camera in 2020. Mario's movements also have a bit too much slipperiness to them, which makes the simple act of turning around more awkward than it should be. New players, especially anyone that started with Odyssey and is now working backwards through Mario's history, might struggle. Overall though, I don't think it's just the rose-tinted glasses talking when I say Super Mario 64 is still a wonderfully constructed 3D platformer, not to mention an invaluable piece of gaming history. Super Mario Sunshine Super Mario Sunshine has the benefit of a more polished, detailed art style compared to 64, but there are still some nice enhancements at work here, including widescreen support and a reformatted HUD. What's really surprising is how great the game looks with just a few adjustments. The art direction of Sunshine is still excellent and just exudes vacation fun (even if Mario is stuck battling monsters), and the paint/pollution effects look great. The controls also work well on the Switch, even without the pressure-sensitive GameCube triggers (now ZR allows Mario to spray water and move while R keeps him stationary). The only negative is that you can't customize the controls, so anyone that prefers inverted camera controls—as in the original game—is out of luck. Like a lot of GameCube games, Sunshine was a bit of an oddball experiment for Nintendo. Using the F.L.U.D.D. to clean up the environment, attack enemies, and propel Mario around each world provides for undeniably unique challenges, and some of the most difficult parts of the game are when Mario doesn't have his water jetpack available. There are some pretty unforgiving challenges as well due to how vertical a lot of the environments are in Sunshine. Parts of the game also feel oddly padded out, including the huge number of blue coins to collect and the repeated tasks of fighting bosses multiple times. Still, Mario's tropical adventure really is a fun break from some of the typical gameplay elements of the franchise. Sunshine is unusual in the Mario canon which also makes it rather memorable, and helps its strengths shine a little brighter. There's also a clear evolution from 64's first tentative steps into 3D platforming to Sunshine's more elaborate and tricky challenges, and it's particularly rewarding to play them back to back and see that development so clearly. Super Mario Galaxy Finally there's Super Mario Galaxy, which has the easiest transition to HD—largely thanks to the already gorgeous visual design that brought these colorful planetoids and striking lighting effects to life in 2007—and yet also has the trickiest controller adjustment. Motion and pointer controls were inextricably built into the controls of the game on the Wii, and it's hard to properly replicate that on the Switch, even with multiple controller options, including touch controls for collecting and shooting star bits when playing in handheld mode. Even with Joy-Cons the controls just don't feel quite right, but after a bit of time to adjust it's not a huge problem. It doesn't feel like the ideal way to play the game, but it's still playable. And once you get into the absolute joy of leaping around all of the planets and wild shapes of Galaxy, controller quirks will be the last thing on your mind. Granted Galaxy is the youngest of these three games but it holds up incredibly well, from the beautiful visuals and stunning soundtrack to the pure delight of flying through space and playing with gravity. Though it is also the most linear, it still exudes the kind of inventive design that has kept the Super Mario series as one of the most consistently fantastic game franchises ever made. The level design is dizzying—oftentimes literally—and simply full of wonder and excitement. The other major feature of the 3D All-Stars collection is the music player, which allows you to revisit the soundtrack of all three games and potentially even play it in handheld mode and just enjoy the brilliant music compositions (especially if they're filled with nostalgia for you). The music player is a fun addition and it is great to see the soundtracks highlighted, but one can't help but wish there was a little more to make this feel like more of a full celebration of 3D Mario. The most glaring omission is Super Mario Galaxy 2 of course, but even a bit more like a concept art gallery would have been nice. Super Mario 3D All-Stars doesn't fully remake these classic Mario titles, the games really show their age in some respects, and the collection manages to miss out on the plumber's second trip out to space. When you're immersed in a Super Mario adventure though, those complaints end up feeling small. These three games are still an absolute blast to play, and playing them back to back really highlights the progression of 3D platforming design and Nintendo's seemingly endless ability to create inventive, charming worlds that leave the player amazed. New players may need a bit of time to adjust to some of the dated aspects of each game, but the visual upgrades are more the reason enough to revisit some of Mario's best adventures. Rating: 9 out of 10 Power Stars
  4. Breakpoint puts a new twist on the classic twin-stick shooter formula by giving you melee weapons instead of guns to survive wave after wave of geometric enemies. From developer Studio Aesthesia and publisher Quantum Astrophysicists Guild, Breakpoint creates a fresh arcade score-chasing experience out of one novel concept. Breakpoint relies on a straight up classic arcade game formula: your only goal is to rack up a high score by surviving for as long as possible. In fact, the game doesn't even have any other game modes or options, it's all about the core experience and comparing your scores on the online leaderboard. The game plays like any other twin-stick shooter except for the fact that your attacks are all melee weapons instead of guns or lasers. You start off with an axe but it's also possible to pick up a sword, hammer, spear, or daggers from defeated enemies. The fundamentals are the same as any other twin-stick game—destroy all enemies and survive by outmaneuvering them—but obviously you have to stay in melee range the whole time, which does make things feel a little more dangerous. Sharp evasion skills are more important than ever with Breakpoint. Of course, just melee weapons sounds like it really limits your attack options, so there's another key aspect at play here: after a few hits your weapon breaks, causing a huge explosion that demolishes any nearby enemies. Planning your strategy around the weapon break is crucial since it's a massively powerful area attack and oftentimes the difference between survival and becoming overwhelmed by enemies. The broken weapon also isn't much of an issue because you can repair/recharge it by collecting the energy dots that enemies drop when defeated. Collect enough energy and your weapon will be upgraded to be stronger and/or have more reach, though breaking eventually is inevitable. The weapon break system is a fun way of adding some strategic elements to the familiar twin-stick gameplay formula. Instead of just shooting wildly (or swinging wildly, in this case) you need to plan your approach a bit more to ensure the break happens at the most opportune moment. It helps keep the arcade gameplay a little less mindless, plus getting a huge explosion that wipes out all of the troublesome enemies nearby is pretty satisfying. In that sense, the most important aspect of Breakpoint is setting up these moments where you can cause a huge explosion and reap the points that it provides. The downside is that there really isn't much else to Breakpoint. There's only one game mode and there aren't any options to customize it to create new challenges. There's a small handful of weapon types you can experiment with but these are beholden to enemy drops so there's no guarantee what weapon you'll see available at any given time. You can compare your score on the leaderboard and even check out replays of other players to pick up their strategies, which is a neat feature. Granted, Breakpoint only costs $4.99, but it would have been nice to see a bit more variety in modes or features. The presentation of the game is decidedly minimalist, evoking the neon arcade vibe of the 80s with colorful geometric enemies set against a stark black background. The music is also a pretty light touch, and you shouldn't expect too much variety here either. In the end the presentation is fine for what the game is, and the neon style has a hypnotic quality perfect for zoning out from the world around you and focusing entirely on the game. Breakpoint is a fun twist on a classic game genre, one that will certainly scratch an itch for any old-school arcade fans that love zoning out with an engaging high score chaser. The lack of other game modes does make the experience feel a bit one note, but at such a modest price point it's hardly a stretch to give Breakpoint a chance and pick it up every now and then for another attempt at unseating the online leaderboard. Rating: 7 out of 10 Breaks Review copy provided by publisher Breakpoint will be available on the Switch eShop on September 24 for $4.99.
  5. Catherine: Full Body brings back the 2011 cult hit with brand new content in the story and gameplay, providing even more relationship complications for protagonist Vincent to puzzle over and towers to climb. With a mix of stylish visual novel storytelling and challenging block tower puzzle gameplay, the original Catherine provided a wholly unique experience. Now this updated version adds even more content, perfect for either returning or new players. Vincent Brooks is in a steady if routine relationship with his long-time girlfriend Katherine, but a chance encounter with an enigmatic young woman (named Catherine) at a bar throws his fidelity into question. To make matters worse, throughout the city unfaithful men are being haunted by strange nightmares which have deadly consequences in the waking world. Full Body adds yet another romantic entanglement into the mix, the amnesic Rin whom Vincent rescues from a dark alleyway one night and helps land a job at his favorite bar. Torn between these women, Vincent is perpetually on edge and forced to examine what he wants out of a relationship. Sure it's a bizarre setting for it, but Catherine: Full Body actually tells a pretty engaging story about confronting one's own indecisiveness about commitment. The downside is that the game does lean heavily on cliche, ham-fisted portrayals of gender roles (men=casual infidelity, women=nagging marriage) which makes for some clunky dialogue that honestly must have felt dated even in 2011, much less now. The game also gets into a, granted, believable portrayal of sensitive topics, but is still a bit uncomfortable and a bit callous. Rin's inclusion in particular feels a bit awkwardly inserted into the existing narrative. Despite all of that, the underlying exploration of relationships is still an engaging one, and the characters do see some growth over the course of the game by confronting the doubts that are preventing them from forging meaningful relationships. And with multiple endings possible as well as the new side story revolving around Rin, Catherine: Full Body tells a story that will easily pull you in, like a slow-moving relationship train wreck in a TV show where you can't help but want to see the final impact. A significant part of the gameplay revolves around just following the story—you spend half of your time in the Stray Sheep bar with Vincent and his friends, talking to fellow patrons and stressing out over what to say to Katherine or Catherine—but the more core gameplay features play out in Vincent's nightmares. In this dream realm, dressed only in his boxers and surrounded by sheep, Vincent must navigate a tower of blocks to reach the top. By pulling or pushing blocks you can create paths upward, though of course the obstacles in your way get more and more elaborate as the game progresses, from exploding blocks to antagonistic sheep that try to push you back down. You're challenged to think through how to create a viable path upward, but you can't spend too long thinking since the blocks at the bottom are gradually falling away into the abyss, prompting you to move quickly. It's a relatively simple puzzle-game system that Catherine: Full Body gets some great mileage out of, thanks to the wealth of possibilities that arise from just moving blocks to climb higher. There's a lot more depth at work than you might initially expect, and the game gradually explains some more advanced techniques to you that highlight just how flexible the system can be. It also requires a good amount of forethought and planning and, paired with the constant threat of falling into the abyss, the gameplay can be just as intense and stressful as Vincent's panicked expression every time he's talking to the women in his life. But as challenging as the game can be it also never feels terribly unfair. You can actually undo your last few moves if you realize you've made a mistake, or you could always restart from the last checkpoint you hit. Even with the constant time limit pressed upon you, there are opportunities to experiment at your own pace. Plus, finally reaching the top always feels like a satisfying accomplishment. The only aspect that does feel a bit lacking is in the controls. Your view of the block tower is essentially a 3D isometric display, but sometimes remembering exactly what left/right/up/down correspond to on the control stick is a bit awkward. A control stick in general doesn't feel like an ideal input method for the game's cubic level design, and it's easy to grab the wrong block or move in the wrong direction. It can lead to some foolish mistakes, which also means wasting time as the blocks below you continue to crumble. Thankfully though, the undo action means small missteps aren't a big deal, and this is all just a minor inconvenience in the control scheme. The presentation in Catherine: Full Body is pretty stylish, which shouldn't be too surprising considering some of the creators of the Persona games also worked on this. The fully animated cutscenes—and there are a lot of them—are beautiful, and really help to fully characterize Vincent and his love interests. The in-game graphics are less stand-out but still strong, and more importantly the excellent voice work helps bring the characters to life in a more realistic way. The soundtrack is excellent as well with a number of catchy, jazzy tunes and piano pieces that just feel right for a character in a near constant state of relationship crisis, punctuated by brief moments of respite. Just one playthrough of Catherine: Full Body lasts a good fourteen hours or so, maybe longer if you get particularly stuck on climbing the blocks, but this game is also packed with additional content. For one thing, there are multiple endings you can pursue, which also develop Vincent's character in different ways. It might be a little tedious to replay the whole game just to see these differences, but players looking to get the most out of the game should enjoy taking the time to do so. This edition of the game also comes with tons of additional challenges you can tackle outside of the story, including co-op and online competitive modes. If you enjoy the block puzzle gameplay, you're in for a real treat here. Catherine: Full Body provides a wealth of puzzle-solving gameplay thanks to the significant additions this version of the game provides. Throughout all of that, the core story of a romantically indecisive man haunted by his own hesitance is an engaging story, though the writing dips into some disappointing portrayals of gender norms and marginalized groups. Still, it's an engaging story like any romance triangle in a movie or show, and even if you're here just for the gameplay there's enough content and depth to keep you plenty busy. Switch owners looking for something unique will find Catherine: Full Body worth checking out. Rating: 8 out of 10 Sheep
  6. The party killer, determined to silence every noisy gathering he can find, is back again in Party Hard 2 from developer Pinokl Games and publisher tinyBuild Games. As before you're able to systematically dismantle each raucous party by killing everyone in attendance through a variety of traps, explosives, and your trusty knife. But instead of simply massacring every stage, you're also now given specific tasks to complete, including dispatching key targets at the party, finding valuables, or destroying valuable items. The new mission system is a welcome shake up to the original game's format, though doesn't fundamentally change the tedious nature of the gameplay. What little story there was in the first game is continued here with short cutscenes narrated by the killer's psychiatrist, explaining the murderer's actions and path of bloody destruction. Even though the cutscenes are pretty brief they manage to be a little difficult to follow—it may also just be that they are, frankly, rather boring and put mostly unnecessary context on the killer's actions. This isn't the kind of game that needs a detailed story, especially if it's done in a rather clumsy manner like this. The wooden voice acting also doesn't help sell the writing, and really just makes the whole attempt at a narrative feel a bit sloppy. In the first game, your goal was to simply murder every person at each party, which often meant taking out over fifty people through various traps, items, and weapons. If you're seen in the act the witness will call the cops on you and it's game over, so your strategy has to focus around stealth and finding ways to kill that don't draw too much attention (which can be somewhat nonsensical at times—no one reacts when you throw a grenade from a short distance away? Really?). That's more or less the same MO in Party Hard 2, but this time the game provides a variety of optional objectives (some of which are hidden until you stumble upon them) that provide a bit more guidance and nuance. For example, in one stage you might be tasked with killing all eighty party people or instead you could find the hidden target list somewhere in the level and then kill only the people on that list. Having actual objectives is a big improvement for Party Hard 2. The first game's formula was okay but quickly felt repetitive, especially when you were stuck just waiting for people to peel off into small groups so you could strike. Now there's much more incentive to fully explore the stage and really consider your approach. And the fact that you can still just murder everyone in sight should satisfy any bloodthirsty players as well. The only downside is that some objectives can be annoyingly vague which, paired with the game's habit of not fully explaining what different items actually do, can leave you at a complete loss as to how you're actually supposed to complete the objective. At least you can always fall back on wanton murder if pursuing the objectives isn't working out for you. The objectives can make the game progress a little more easily, but to compensate Party Hard 2 makes things harder for you by adding aggressive guards that will attack you on sight. These guards can be a huge pain since you don't need to be caught in the act for them to attack you—your very presence is enough to draw their ire. As a new obstacle to your murder sprees, the guards make sense, but oftentimes dealing with them just isn't very satisfying. They're more like a chore that you have to deal with before getting back into the actual interesting part of the game. It certainly doesn't help that they are just one more way of ruining your plans, and restarting a stage has the added annoyance of sitting through a long load screen every time. For a game where retrying repeatedly seems totally natural, it's a real shame that reloading isn't snappier. Finally, Party Hard 2 also shakes things up by adding boss fights. Kudos to the developers for trying to add some new flavor to the game but these battles are horribly misguided. The stealth and strategy gameplay doesn't translate well to boss fights in small arenas at all, and the final boss in particular feels more like an awkward, stilted battle from an action-adventure game rather than something that suits Party Hard 2. Like the first game you simply don't move very fast so trying to dodge attacks and strike back in turn feels terribly clumsy. With just fourteen levels, the game could potentially last you only a few hours, but more realistically it'll take plenty of deaths, retries, and some frustration to make it through the whole adventure. However, Party Hard 2 is also packed with replayable features, including co-op, alternate playable characters with different abilities, and of course replaying each level to complete every challenge. If you don't mind the game's repetitive nature there are plenty of incentives to redo each level over and over again. The presentation of Party Hard 2 upgrades the original's retro pixel art style with a mix of 2D and 3D effects. Characters are still 2D pixel art images, but they now move around in a 3D environment, like paper cutouts in a diorama. The effect is a bit underwhelming. It's striking at first, but it also makes details rather hard to make out. The game thankfully introduces a Party Vision ability that highlights objects of interest, but if the graphics were a little more clear you wouldn't need to be constantly scanning the environment with it in the first place. The soundtrack also certainly captures the repetitive dance party tracks you might expect to hear at a rave, but none of the tracks actually stand out well. Party Hard 2 makes some welcome improvements over the first game, though it also doesn't feel like it improves everything it should have. The core concept of using inventive traps and items to pick off party goers one by one is still charmingly macabre, but in execution it leads to some pretty repetitive gameplay, even with the addition of optional objectives. Still, if you enjoy the challenge of stealth games and don't mind the grisly concept, Party Hard 2 is a decent continuation of this indie series. Rating: 7 out of 10 Parties Review copy provided by publisher Party Hard 2 is available now on the Switch eShop for $19.99.
  7. How do you move around in a platformer that doesn't allow you to jump? In Deleveled, from developer ToasterFuel and publisher the Quantum Astrophysicists Guild, it's a matter of momentum. In this unusual puzzle-platformer you control two simple squares that gravitate to each other from the top and bottom of the screen, but when one bumps into the platform that the other is resting on, the momentum carries through to propel the square to new heights. Once you get your head wrapped around the concept, you're treated to a wealth of challenging, mind-bending puzzles. By all appearances, Deleveled looks like a pretty simple game, but its modest presentation belies an impressively complex puzzle system. The goal of each stage is to hit all switches to activate the glowing goal points, then navigate the squares into these points. On paper, a seemingly simple task. In reality, Deleveled will twist your brain into knots as you try to work out exactly how to reach remote switches without leaving behind the other square. When you have essentially two "characters" to manipulate on screen at all times, you have to start thinking carefully about how to move throughout each stage. Each square's movement is linked to the other's, so you have to be wary of stranding one with no means of moving. It's the mark of a great puzzle game to take a simple concept and work it into dozens of inventive challenges, and that's exactly what Deleveled does. Over the course of the game the stages get more and more complex by adding things like moving platforms or the ability to rotate the stage, but from start to finish the core gameplay is fiendishly clever and often takes lateral thinking, as well as a bit of platforming dexterity. It's also important to note that you can re-use switches, which is hugely helpful when dealing with asymmetric switches. It also means you can easily correct minor mistakes and aren't beholden to hitting each switch in a specific order. The only additional challenge in each level is completing the stage without dying or retrying, which will earn you a star. Collect enough stars and you'll unlock additional levels. Unfortunately that's pretty much it when it comes to additional frills in Deleveled, and earning stars sometimes feel like more of an exercise in tedium than real challenge since one false move will render your attempt wasted. You also won't be able to rely on any hints to help you progress, though you can play levels somewhat out of order if you find yourself completely stumped by one. The game feels a bit bare-boned, but then again a puzzle game like this doesn't need many extra features. The game's presentation is also extremely simple, which suits the puzzle gameplay but can't help but leave something to be desired. The totally basic visuals do ensure that the squares' movements on screen are always perfectly clear, but it still would have been nice to have something with a little more personality. The music is also a bit too bland, though again it's not surprising since the focus here is on puzzle-solving. Deleveled puts its core concept to excellent use across over one hundred challenging puzzle stages. The simple premise easily unfolds into a wide variety of inventive puzzles, and even once you have the basics down the game will surprise you with new twists that will have you pulling your hair out. A bit more on the presentation front might have rounded out the experience better, but puzzle fans should enjoy the clever challenges that Deleveled offers. Rating: 8 out of 10 Delevels Review copy provided by publisher Deleveled will be available on the Switch eShop on September 10 for $9.99.
  8. It's been over twenty-five years since the last game in the series but now Streets of Rage 4 is bringing back the franchise in the only way it possibly could: with a ton of side-scrolling beat 'em up action. Rather than reinvent the formula, Streets of Rage 4 feels like it could have been made back in the heyday of the genre, notwithstanding its modern stylish graphics and sound. Fans of the series will love having a new entry, though the way the game clings to the past leaves something to be desired. The story takes place ten years after the events of Streets of Rage 3. The villainous Mr. X and his crime syndicate has been defeated, but now his children, the Y twins, have built their own crime organization, prompting our returning heroes, Axel Stone and Blaze Fielding, to once again crack some heads on the mean streets to put an end to their nefarious deeds. I really doubt anyone is playing the Streets of Rage games for their storytelling, so it shouldn't be much of a surprise that the plot is really just a bare-boned facilitator for beatdown action. And that's not really a slight against the game—the writing in a beat 'em up like this doesn't need to be more than that. Streets of Rage 4 is classic side-scrolling beat 'em up action. You choose one of four characters and walk through levels packed with thugs to punch, kick, and throw. In addition to basic attacks, you can charge up a hit for extra damage, perform a quick rush attack by double tapping forward, and, most importantly, sacrifice some of your health to use special attacks. Not only are these specials more powerful, they can provide a small period of invincibility, which makes them even more valuable when you're surrounded. Streets of Rage 4 also takes some pity on the player by allowing you to recover the health spent on a special if you can quickly execute some basic hits on an enemy. If you're hit during this window of opportunity though, you'll lose that health. Finally there are star moves which are massive special attacks that cost stars to use (on normal difficulty you start the stage with one star and can find more scattered throughout the level). Knowing when to use and how to combo together your basic, special, and star attacks is the key to success. And that's basically it. The gameplay really doesn't get much more complicated than that, outside of the ability to pick up weapons and a small variety of enemies that provide different challenges—some enemies will counter attack you if you hit them at the wrong time, some throw grenades, some have shields, etc. Streets of Rage 4's formula is virtually unchanged from the kinds of beat 'em ups you could find in arcades in the 80s and 90s, which is great if you already love the satisfying simplicity of such games. It really is a blast from the past and there's a great sense of authenticity to the game design that will surely transport you back to those halcyon days. However, it does feel like more could have been done to modernize the experience, even if it's just to throw in some unique stages more often. There's a small variety of environmental hazards that occasionally pop up, but otherwise the experience really feels the same from one level to the next. And again that doesn't make any of the stages poorly designed or not fun to play, but it feels like there were so many other opportunities for more inventive game design. The game also has the somewhat sluggish feel of a lot of beat 'em up games. Aside from Cherry Hunter, who is the designated fast character in the game, the playable characters feel slow, to the point where bosses can literally walk circles around you. Moving up and down on the screen feels a bit imprecise, which again is something a lot of beat 'em up games deal with, but it can be a little frustrating at times. On one hand it's great that Streets of Rage 4 can preserve the kind of experience found in the original games, but on the other hand there's a lot more that could have been done with the gameplay. A quick three hours or so will see you through the story mode, but a big strength of a game like this is its replay value. Not only are there multiple playable characters, each with slight differences in how they attack and move, there are also plenty of difficulty options, an arcade mode (which challenges you to complete the game without using continues), boss rush, multiplayer versus mode, and multiplayer co-op. You can even play co-op online which works pretty smoothly. You might have trouble finding other players these days but it's worth taking the effort to coordinate with a friend and team up on some of these overwhelming waves of enemies and bosses. Being able to play with a friend definitely adds to the experience. The game's presentation is the one aspect that feels truly modernized, and the result is beautiful. Hand-drawn graphics are stunningly animated to give the game a gorgeously vivid sense of color and style. The music is impeccable as well. It's the perfect kind of heart-pumping beat you want to accompany a game all about beating up enemies over and over. The presentation finds a perfect balance of evoking the classic tone and feel of the franchise while bringing in some modern style as well. Streets of Rage 4 is a stylish throwback to a cult classic franchise and a genre that has seen less and less attention over the years. The game is a little too beholden to the old school formula, perhaps just out of a sense of preserving the original experience, but fans of the series will love having a chance to dish out some beatdowns on the side-scrolling streets again anyway. Grab a friend for the classic co-op experience and enjoy a window into the gaming of yesteryear, now with stylish modern graphics and sound. Rating: 7 out of 10 Streets
  9. Among last week's Indie World announcements and surprise drops was Evergate, a colorful puzzle-platformer set in the afterlife from developer Stone Lantern Games and publisher PQube. The game seems to draw inspiration from the best of the indie game scene while centering its gameplay around the Soulflame mechanic that allows for inventive platforming challenges and puzzle scenarios. Evergate may seem like a familiar kind of platformer at first, but its unique mechanics and heartfelt story help it stand out. Evergate takes place in the afterlife where you play as the spirit Ki, who is awaiting reincarnation. But the afterlife is beset by a terrible storm that threatens to destroy everything, so Ki journeys into the memories of her past lives to find the source of the storm and the solution to dispelling it. It's hard to say much more about the story without spoiling too much, especially since the early parts of the game keep things fairly vague. The end of the game however brings together the story's loose ends quite neatly for a truly heartfelt final few scenes that highlight the bonds that transcend lifetimes. It's definitely a bit of a tearjerker in the end, one that can't help but make you reflect on your own personal connections. The gameplay is divided into short puzzle-platformer stages, set in different lifetimes. Your aim is to reach the goal of each stage by using crystals and the Soulflame to move about. Pressing ZR activates the Soulflame and lets you aim with the control stick to align the flame with a crystal; you then press Y to activate the crystal. Each crystal has different effects, for example the first one you use propels you in the opposite direction, so you might need to jump over a crystal, aim the Soulflame down, then activate the crystal to push yourself up and reach a higher platform. It's an unusual movement system and does take a bit of getting used to, especially since the controls feel a bit unintuitive at first. After a few levels though you should get the hang of things, and from there the inventive possibilities of the Soulflame system shine. For one thing, each chapter of the game introduces new crystals with different effects, which end up getting pretty wild, such as the crystal that creates an anti-gravity field around you so you can float in air, or one that turns you into a fireball that can break through weak walls. Multiple types of crystals can appear on one stage, which is what makes Evergate as much of a puzzle game as it is a platformer. You'll have to work out a viable path to the goal with the tools (i.e. crystals) provided to you, and it can get challenging when there's no obvious path. However the difficulty never feels overwhelming. Since there are only a certain number and type of crystals in a stage, you know in general what kinds of actions you'll need to use to reach the goal. You likely won't get too stuck as long as you focus on what crystals are available to you, and it is rather fun to go through a couple of trial and error attempts as you work out a successful path. That said, the platforming aspects of Evergate can be rather tricky. Even when you've worked out the solution to the puzzle, actually executing on that solution can be challenging, especially when you're quickly bounding through the level and using your Soulflame in mid-air. As mentioned the controls can take a bit of getting used to, and even with the game's auto-aim system enabled it's sometimes hard to hit a crystal in the exact spot you want. Thankfully though each level is very short, and you can restart almost instantly, so even when you do miss a tricky jump you're not losing tons of time. There are also three bonus objectives available in each stage: collect all three essence petals, use every crystal, and reach the goal within the time limit. Each bonus objective earns you an essence, which are used to unlock artifacts that you can equip. Artifacts are hugely powerful and can make the game significantly easier, whether it's a simple boost like jumping higher or something more specific like protection from falling rocks, which appear on certain stages and can kill you. Regardless, you definitely want to be unlocking artifacts, plus these bonus objectives make each stage much more engaging (and thankfully you don't have to complete all bonus objectives at once, since the time limit ones are usually so strict that you really have to fly through the level with every shortcut you can muster). Collecting a lot of essence will also unlock bonus levels for a little extra incentive. The game's stages are thoughtfully constructed as compact and challenging platformer puzzles, and collecting every essence helps highlight that fact. The game's presentation is pretty delightful, both in the visual and music departments. The hand-drawn artwork is colorful and vivid, though it can feel a bit repetitive at times, partially because the core visuals—platforms, crystals, etc.—aren't going to deviate too much. Still, there's a lot to be said for the colors and emotion found in the backgrounds. The music is also doing a lot of the heavy lifting of giving Evergate its ethereal, otherworldly atmosphere. The orchestral soundtrack is incredibly emotive and really helps bring the story to its emotional climax. Evergate weaves an emotional story, brought to life with colorful graphics and a moving soundtrack, into an inventive and challenging puzzle-platformer experience. It takes a bit of time to build up steam, but the later levels of the game showcase some sharp level design that require not just thoughtful approaches but quick reactions as well. Though it won't take too long to make it through the whole game once, the challenge of collecting every essence is a worthwhile pursuit, and speedrunners should enjoy finding new ways to fly through each level. Even if you take it slow, Evergate is a worthwhile puzzle-platformer on the Switch. Rating: 8 out of 10 Essences Review copy provided by publisher Evergate is available now on the Switch eShop for $19.99. On sale until 8/30 for $16.99.
  10. Up is down, left is right, and sometimes up is left and down is right depending on where you're standing in Manifold Garden, a mind-warping puzzle game all about changing gravity to see solutions from new angles. Developed by William Chyr, this first-person trip into an MC Escher print challenges you with simple gameplay mechanics that are put to wild effects as you navigate a world of repeating patterns and surreal landscapes. And it's a landscape that is a joy to explore. There's no text or voice over to guide you in Manifold Garden, you're simply left to explore this surreal world that seems to have no beginning or end, just endlessly repeating structures. What the game does have is an incredibly sharp sense of atmosphere, brought out by the visual and audio design, as well as the fact that you are wandering alone through unreal structures. There's something a little haunting about that, especially when the music—normally kept at a moody minimum—swells as you uncover a new area to explore. Conversely, the game is also quite calming and meditative. Just like an MC Escher print, you'll get lost in Manifold Garden as you observe how the unreal scenery interlinks. There's a real sense of wonder and awe to the experience, which is only heightened by the minimalist art style that allows your mind to just roam and revel in the landscape. The art style serves the gameplay as well. The puzzles would likely be far more confusing and complicated if there was too much detail in the environments—the endless white scenery and strong linework of Manifold Garden does have a way of keeping you focused on the puzzles. Throughout the game your goal is essentially just to move forward, open new paths, and continue exploring this world. You do this by manipulating gravity and moving colored cubes around to activate switches. The gravity effects are trippy, and yet ultimately quite easy to grasp. When facing a wall, you press ZR, and what was once the wall is now the floor (I use terms like "walls" and "floors" to convey how you move about but these are honestly rather meaningless in this game). This allows you to climb up every side of a room or explore each facet of a structure floating in the endless white abyss. To make things a little easier to follow, each surface is color-coded, so you can quickly tell which direction is currently "down." The cubes are also color-coded so you can conveniently see that you'll need to be on the red surface to use the red cube. Most areas of the game are also endlessly repeating, so for example if you jump off a cliff you'll eventually land back in the same spot. Not only does this mean you can't really get "stuck" anywhere, it allows for some truly inventive puzzle solutions. This all feels very strange to explain in text, but rest assured that the gameplay is shockingly easy to understand once you've had a few moments with the game. One of Manifold Garden's great strengths is in making the complex seem simple, and the simple seem complex. Initially the game might seem daunting, but it doesn't take long at all for the seemingly complicated mechanics to click in your brain. It also allows for some delightfully mind-bending puzzle solutions, which most often strike you in an "of course, why didn't I see this sooner" sort of way. And once you have those basic mechanics down, Manifold Garden is an absolute delight to explore. The scenery is endlessly surprising, and there are always interesting new quirks to puzzle over in each new area that you uncover. The puzzles themselves are also engaging without being frustrating. Manipulating the 3D space can get a little confusing but there wasn't a single puzzle solution that I found to be obtuse or annoying. It helps that, since you have so few tools or actions at your disposal, you'll never be bogged down with options. Instead you just need to examine the area and consider the puzzle from a new angle—literally. It's a game that you can very easily lose yourself in, and not just because the environments are so surreal. One of the few downsides to Manifold Garden is that it simply isn't longer. You can pretty comfortably get through the game in just five hours or so, though that number can vary depending on how quick you are at solving 3D spatial puzzles. Like most puzzle games there's not a ton of incentive to replay it once you already know the answers, though the solutions in the game so often come out of pure experimentation that I might not be able to replicate most of them right away. There's also something to be said for the journey of Manifold Garden, not the destination. Wandering through the beautiful and trippy scenery of the game may well warrant a replay or two. It feels cliche to say of games like this, but Manifold Garden is an experience, one that treats players to a surreal, breathtaking journey and challenges them with inventive and mind-bending puzzles. It's a clever puzzle game without being tedious, with stunning art and music that knows exactly how much or how little to use. It's so easy to be drawn into this endlessly repeating world, and it's a tranquil, delightful experience to discover the surprising puzzles and solutions that wait within. Rating: 9 out of 10 Cubes Review copy provided by developer Manifold Garden is available now on the Switch eShop for $19.99, currently on sale until 8/30 for $17.99.
  11. [Information] Title: Ion Fury Release Date: May 14th, 2020 (Switch, PS4, Xbox One) August 15th, 2019 (PC) Price: 24.99 Review Code Provided By: 3D Realms Disappointing. It's a word that kept coming up during my time with Ion Fury on Nintendo Switch. While the game is a fantastic, fast and frenetic shooter on PC the Switch port is a mess with multiple problems including bugs, glitches and a less than stable framerate bringing any enjoyment this title has to an almost complete stop. This Bombshell is a Dud Ion Fury is a classic 90's shooter inspired by games like Duke Nukem 3D, Shadow Warrior and Blood. It runs on the Build Engine which actually powered the three previous titles mentioned. It's a throwback in a similar vein to Doom (2016). That means a focus on fast combat with a heavy emphasis on strafing, keycards to find, and large explorable levels full of secrets and of course no regenerating health or weapon limit. Ion Fury has a story putting you in control of Shelly "Bombshell" Harrison a foul-mouthed, Duke Nukem-esque female badass as she attempts to the stop the evil Dr. Heskel (played by Duke himself John St. John) from taking over the city of Neo D.C. but it's a story so insubstantial that you're better off just ignoring it. The voice acting from John St. John and Valerie Arem as Shelly are excellent and it's clear that each actor is having a blast. Shelly delivers quips (which can be turned off) during certain actions and while they do repeat a bit it's still entertaining due to the delivery. The music is also a highlight as it fits the cyberpunk aesthetic and each tracks fits in perfectly with the action. Ion Fury consists of 7 zone comprising about 30 levels (including some secret levels) through the campaign you will explore buildings, discover secret hideouts, explore sewers (because every 90's shooter had to have sewer levels) and more. Each zone will probably take most people about an 1-2 hours to complete especially if you are looking for secrets. The levels themselves are extremely enjoyable even if a few of them do feel a bit too big and maze like. Each zone is then capped off with an epic boss fight that will definitely test some skills even on the default normal difficulty. A Broken Switch The port of Ion Fury was handled by General Arcade and to say it has issues is an understatement. Ion Fury targets 30 Frames Per Second and it rarely holds it. The game chugs anytime there are multiple enemies on screen and even worse when explosions are involved. There is one boss fight that has so many explosions it brings the framerate down to almost single digits and that was after the game received an alleged performance patch. The game also crashed during said boss fight no less than 5 times forcing a restart of the level. I also encountered a bug in a level where a switch didn't activate properly forcing a restart as well. The game also suffers from textures glitching out and for some unexplained reason the game randomly faced me in a different direction during combat leading to a lot of unnecessary deaths. The game also has no way to customize controls and while you can get used to the controls fairly quickly it is still a bit unfortunate. Verdict Ion Fury on Switch is a poor version of an excellent game. The excellent level design, great weapons and fantastic music is sadly tarnished by the numerous technical problems. If you are wanting to play Ion Fury check either the other console versions out or go for the original PC version. Score: 2 Out Of 5 (Rough)
  12. Six years ago, Phoenotopia debuted on Newgrounds as a Flash game. Not content with the dated capabilities of that platform, developer Cape Cosmic fully revamped the game to give it a new life with updated graphics, script, and an all-around bigger scope. Phoenotopia: Awakening is a far cry from its original Flash incarnation, and now takes players on a massive side-scrolling action/adventure packed with side quests, challenging boss fights, and secrets to uncover. Rest assured this is not your typical indie pixel art adventure, particularly due to its charming presentation and fiendishly difficult combat system. You play as Gail, a young girl living a quiet life in a small country village, until a mysterious flying object kidnaps all of the adults. As the oldest member of the community, Gail leaves the children in the safety of the village and sets out on a quest to rescue the adults and uncover the source of the strange ship. Soon enough the scope of the adventure grows massive, with a number of twists and turns in the narrative that will certainly keep you guessing as to what could possibly happen next. In fact, the story gets a little wild by the end, resulting in a finale that feels a bit rushed given the events leading up to it. Still, there's a lot to love about the game's writing thanks to an abundance of humor and heart. This is clearly a fully fleshed out world and every single person you meet has a few lines of dialogue that are cute, funny, or some combination of the two. You'll absolutely want to take the time to talk to everyone when you enter a new town. The gameplay has some clear similarities to Zelda II, even down to the overworld map with roaming random monster encounters. In terms of adventure and exploration, Phoenotopia: Awakening is a wonderfully rich experience. Each area of the game is packed with things to uncover, both inside and outside of the main dungeons, and you'll be well rewarded for treading off the beaten path. You'll find both health expansions and stamina expansions, both vital to your survival, as well as other key items such as Moonstones that can be spent on other upgrades. It is incredibly easy to get caught up in exploring every nook and cranny you can find, to the point where you can spend hours and hours just poking around the game's hidden areas or working through side quests/mini-games. It's definitely the kind of game where you'll feel compelled to re-explore everything you can when you find a new item, in the hopes of uncovering more secrets. The lack of an in-game map does make it difficult to keep yourself oriented at times, but it's not so bad that you'll be constantly lost. Just finishing the main quest will likely take you at least thirty hours or so, and doing everything the game has to offer could easily double that number. Frankly, the amount of content in Phoenotopia: Awakening would be impressive for a AAA game, so coming from an indie developer it's pretty astounding. The complexity and design of the game's puzzles is also what makes Phoenotopia: Awakening such a compelling experience. You'll encounter some standard adventure game puzzles or obstacles—hit the switch to open a new path, utilize all of your items to progress, etc.—but there are also some fairly intricate puzzles that are a lot of fun to work through. These are the kinds of puzzles you'll need a pencil and paper to properly work out and visualize, and that old school puzzle mentality fits perfectly with the game's retro aesthetic. Phoenotopia: Awakening's combat system is no less intricate but the challenge is a bit more punishing and a bit less fun. This game doesn't hold much back when it comes to battling even basic monsters. For one thing, all attacks and item use are tied to your stamina meter, so you can't just swing wildly. Requiring a thoughtful approach is fine, but the game also pairs this with relatively little in terms of dodging or blocking (you can sprint away but that also drains stamina). Gail's main weapon is a short range club that actually gets weaker upon multiple hits, so you have to back off and "recharge" a bit between swings. None of Gail's attacks or items are particularly fast either, which gives you narrow windows for striking. You can recover health by eating food, but much like Monster Hunter or Dark Souls there's an animation period while eating which can leave you vulnerable. And the biggest frustration is the lack of invincibility frames when you're hit, which means you can easily be juggled by multiple enemy attacks in a row (which actually happens quite often, whether due to multiple enemies or rapid-fire attacks). All of this isn't to say that the combat system in Phoenotopia: Awakening is bad, but it is extremely challenging, much more so than you might expect given the otherwise friendly appearance of the game. You really have to time your moments to strike, and boss fights will likely take numerous attempts as you learn their patterns. It can also be rather discouraging, especially since there's no immediate retry option—you'll have to go back to your last save point—which can be tedious when you're out exploring and just plain time consuming when you're in a boss fight and just want to jump in again for another attempt. The difficulty of the combat system might blindside a lot of players and put them off, which is a shame since the exploration side of the game is certainly worth pursuing. The game's presentation puts pixel art graphics to excellent use, and pairs them with a stellar soundtrack. At a glance this might look like yet another pixel art indie game on the Switch, but the environments are wonderfully detailed and the characters' relatively simple designs actually allows for some outstanding animation—Gail rising out of bed with a yawn and a stretch is absolutely charming every time you see it. Just like the writing, there's a lot of hidden depth to the visual design to enjoy. The music is also phenomenal, featuring a wide array of songs that are lively, engaging, and perfect for both exploration and combat. The soundtrack sets a perfect tone for adventure and mystery, whether in dark caverns or bustling towns. Phoenotopia: Awakening is a stunning achievement from such a small indie team. Clearly the developers have spent the past few years fleshing out everything they could from the original Flash game, and the result is an incredibly rich action/adventure packed with intriguing and compelling scenery to explore, townsfolk to meet, and monsters to slay. The combat does feel perhaps overtuned toward experienced fighters and the unforgiving difficulty might easily dissuade more casual players from giving the game a chance, but if you stick with Phoenotopia: Awakening its addictive exploration gameplay and charming presentation make it an adventure worth taking. Rating: 8 out of 10 Moonstones Review copy provided by publisher Phoenotopia: Awakening will be available on the Switch eShop on August 20 for $19.99.
  13. The original Deadly Premonition, released in 2010, achieved cult classic status not because it was a good game but because it was a confoundingly bizarre one. It was riddled with technical issues and just plain mediocre design, particularly with its clunky combat mechanics, but the utterly unusual writing—particularly the quirks of its protagonist, FBI agent Francis York Morgan—endeared it to tons of players. But how do you make a sequel to a game like that? One that was loved both because of and in spite of its flaws? It puts Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise in a precarious position, resulting in a game that feels just as plagued with problems but without the accidental charm of the original. If the first game wore its Twin Peaks influences on its sleeve, A Blessing in Disguise does the same with True Detective. The game opens with two FBI agents interrogating an aged York in 2019 before flashing back to 2005, where the majority of the game takes place. Back then, York was swept up in a murder investigation in the small town of Le Carré, Louisiana, where a teenage girl was completely dismembered and propped up on an altar for display. York teams up with the local sheriff and his precocious daughter to investigate the matter, which weaves into bizarre ritual and metaphysical territory, all while involving the quirky town locals. The writing is verbose and seemingly aimless at times, capturing an almost stream-of-consciousness style as characters dip into random pop culture references and oddball behavior seamlessly. It's undeniably fascinating to watch the story unfold, though it's not quite satisfying. It feels like there's too much weirdness for weirdness sake here, particularly in the game's climax which throws a little too much at you all at once. The quirky cast of side characters isn't quite as charming as the first game, and is too often pushed to the sidelines or rushed past. It's still an intriguing mystery story, but with so many ungrounded elements it's hard to be fully invested in it from start to finish. Like the first game, the gameplay in A Blessing in Disguise is a melting pot of game genre influences. Most of all it's an open-world exploration game—you travel the town of Le Carré via skateboard to investigate the murder, pick up side quests from the colorful locals, or engage in other mini-games and odd jobs. It also has third-person shooter mechanics as you battle both local wildlife (including wild dogs and alligators) and supernatural, ghostly creatures. There are survival mechanics since you have to eat and sleep semi-regularly, and of course this all comes wrapped up in a horror/mystery setting. All of these varied elements feel somehow appropriate for this oddball game, but the problem is none of them feel particularly well thought out or designed. For example, you're repeatedly given tasks that can only be completed at certain times of day or on certain days of the week, but waiting for the clock to move is either ridiculously time-consuming or costly since the best way to kill time is sleeping in York's hotel room, which gives you a bill every time you do. The game is also filled with obtuse fetch quests, some of which give you a general idea of where to go while others are frustratingly vague. The shooting mechanics are basic and bland, plus there are only a couple different enemy types throughout the entire game, making every battle encounter incredibly repetitive. You do eventually unlock a fast-travel system, but otherwise traveling via skateboard is not just slow but frankly uninteresting—the joke of it all wears itself out in mere minutes. On top of all this the controls are always a little awkward. They aren't terrible, but they also aren't as smooth as they really ought to be—aiming is quite stiff and moving or riding on the skateboard just has a rather clumsy, dated feel to it. In all of this, there's something reminiscent of the original game, but is purposefully designing a game with clunky flaws mean it's quirky, or is it just bad game design? On top of all of this A Blessing in Disguise has some plain technical issues. The frame rate has been patched since its initial launch but it's still noticeably poor, especially when riding the skateboard around town. It's not unplayable but it's incredibly distracting, and makes an already dull travel experience feel that much more obnoxious. The load times are also pretty rough, especially when you exit a building and enter the open world of Le Carré. Granted, there are no loading screens once you're outside, but given the frame rate it might have been better to divide the town into sections that could load separately. The game's presentation also leaves a lot to be desired. More than any of the game's other issues, the dated look of the graphics may be chalked up to a stylistic choice. The original game, after all, had dated graphics for its time as well. The effect just doesn't come together though—the choppy anti-aliasing and jittery animations add nothing to the tone or style of the game, they only detract from the experience. The audio half of the presentation manages its over-the-top quirkiness a bit better. The soundtrack isn't actually half bad, though the songs you hear most often—such as while skateboarding—end up being a bit grating. The voice work though is largely oddball and at times ridiculous, but it actually feels like it suits the bizarre tone that the game is going for more than the dated visual design. It's possible to zip through the main story (even with the time spent just killing time) in about fifteen or twenty hours, but A Blessing in Disguise also has a lot of additional content. There are tons of side quests you can tackle, though most of them lack depth—instead you're stuck doing things like "kill X amount of enemies" or fetch quests. There are also upgrades you can craft by collecting materials, though they're hardly needed to complete the main story. You can also replay the game with a new game plus to wrap up any side quests you didn't finish or to see the story again and hope it makes more sense the second time around. If, for some reason, you just can't get enough of Deadly Premonition, there are a decent number of things to do in this game, but none of them alleviate the gameplay's flaws. I'll say this for the first game and Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise: you're not going to find any other games like them. That's as much of an insult as it is a compliment, but if Deadly Premonition's specific brand of weird pulled you in, you'll be satisfied with this sequel. Anyone else, however, will likely turn away after one look at the janky graphics, or the clumsy controls, or the repetitive and time-wasting tasks the game throws at you. The quirky writing and bizarre mystery at the heart of the story are definitely intriguing, but they might not be good enough to suffer through all the other aspects of the game. Rating: 5 out of 10 Premonitions
  14. Who says twin-stick shooters have to be sci-fi? The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines from developer tinyDino Games and publisher Quantum Astrophysicists Guild brings the twin-stick gameplay formula to a fantasy setting. Instead of shooting bullets, you're tossing swords, firing magic bolts, and of course dodging barrages of enemy attacks as well. Throw on a time manipulation mechanic and you've got a fairly unique action game. You play as Gregor, newly appointed member of the Eternal Fellowship and an Ambassador of Time. However, shortly after your induction, the order's capital city is destroyed, and you're the only hope for setting things right. It's a decent setting for the gameplay but not much more—beyond your initial introduction to side characters and regions it's hard to feel too invested in the story. However, if you do want to get into all of the backstory available, there are hidden lore books scattered throughout the game which add some context and storytelling. The fractured nature of finding these books still makes the writing a bit dry, but there's at least more to the story if you're willing to work for it. The Ambassador features some non-linear progression. After the initial tutorial level you're allowed to tackle the three main worlds in the game in any order. Each world is made up of a variety of levels, but they're all fairly short—in fact there's a time attack challenge for every level with a time limit generally under a minute. Additionally, you can pursue other bonus challenges in each level, such as not taking any damage, not using recovery items, or finding all of the aforementioned lore books. So even though a single playthrough of The Ambassador won't last longer than a few hours, completing everything that the game has to offer by replaying it repeatedly will certainly fill your timeline. The gameplay itself mostly has the twitchy action that you'd expect from a twin-stick shooter, but there are a few important wrinkles. For one thing, you can't spam attacks wildly—when you throw your weapon, you have to wait for it to return to your hand whether you've hit something or not. You need to be a little more thoughtful in your approach, especially if you miss and are left weaponless for several seconds. You can, however, also swap to your magic weapon, most of which are a little more rapid-fire, but at the expense of mana (mana gradually regenerates). This ammo-focused approach can make the gameplay feel a bit slow at times, but it's a unique change of pace from the typical twin-stick shooter and provides its own engaging challenges. Aim is paramount so as not to leave yourself exposed and weaponless, so instead of prioritizing speed, the game focuses on precision, which forces you to approach enemies more thoughtfully. You'll also unlock a number of weapons, magical weapons, and armor as you progress through the game, allowing you to customize your approach a bit. There's a good amount of variety available here and sometimes changing your weapon loadout is the best way to handle new or powerful enemies. The other key aspect of the game has to do with Gregor's time manipulation abilities. You're able to temporarily slow down time around you, making it easy to avoid incoming attacks or perfectly line up your own. The effect will only last for a couple seconds and needs to recharge after it's used, so you can't go crazy spamming it. Just like the "ammo" system you need to plan your moment to use your time abilities well, since it's also your only real defense (no blocking or dodging for Gregor, unfortunately). It's a clever way of wrapping up offense and defense capabilities into one effect, though the timing can be a little tricky at times—some enemy attacks happen so quickly that you'll need to anticipate the attack to actually get away in time. It makes the combat a somewhat more thoughtful dance of attacks and dodging rather than just barrages of bullets like many twin-stick shooters. All that said, The Ambassador can feel rather repetitive at times. There isn't a huge variety of enemies or environments, and if you're not pursuing the speed or no-hit challenges the levels can feel somewhat rote pretty quickly. Even if there are some unique concepts in the gameplay structure, the game doesn't inject enough unique challenges into the action itself to make individual stages feel distinct. If the gameplay does click for you though there's also the BloodHenge mode available after you beat the game once, which is a survival mode that pits you against waves of enemies. It's perfect for score-chasers but for anyone else it only highlights how repetitive the gameplay can feel after a while. The game's retro presentation is solid, though there's not much more to say about it. The pixel graphics are decent but there's not much in the art design that stands out, and the soundtrack is much the same: the music isn't bad but there's not much you're going to remember about it. The bigger enemies and boss creatures are a little more impressive at least, though obviously those are rare to see. The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines mashes together its own timeline of influences—twin-stick shooter, fantasy setting, time manipulation mechancs—into a unique but underwhelming package. This isn't one that you'll likely play for the presentation or story, but the gameplay has some fun ideas, even if its repetitive nature drags. Players looking for a new take on the twin-stick formula that is slightly less frantic might enjoy seeing what The Ambassador has to offer. Rating: 6 out of 10 Timelines Review copy provided by publisher The Ambassador: Fractured Timelines will be available on the Switch eShop on August 13 for $14.99.
  15. I couldn't be more pleased that nonogram puzzles (aka Picross puzzles) have become an increasingly significant genre of games, to the point where we're now seeing it incorporated into genre mash-ups. Framing the puzzle-solving gameplay around a proper story is a logical combination, and what better genre to use than visual novels? Murder by Numbers combines the story-driven appeal of a game like Phoenix Wright with the addictive puzzle mechanics of Picross, and the result is even more than the sum of its parts. Sure it may seem niche, but the stylish design, charming story, and brain-tickling puzzles makes for a winning combination. Murder by Numbers is a detective story, though your path into the field is a little unusual. You play as Honor Mizrahi, an actress on a detective show, who finds herself mixed up with actual murder cases when someone close to her is killed. As luck would have it, at the exact same time she meets SCOUT, a flying robot who assists with finding clues (clues, in this case, are represented by nonogram puzzles). The pair make an unlikely but effective detective partnership, and from there you get three more cases to puzzle over, ultimately leading you to discover more about SCOUT's mysterious origins. The writing is highly reminiscent of Phoenix Wright—there are puns aplenty and most characters are big, larger-than-life personalities that are a lot of fun and allow for plenty of funny, charming, and occasionally heartfelt scenes. The cases themselves will also keep you engaged with plenty of twists and intrigue, even if some of the twists are rather predictable for experienced gumshoes. The gameplay is pretty evenly divided between talking to/interrogating characters and solving nonogram puzzles. On each screen you have the option to talk to anyone in the area or investigate. Investigating lets you scan the screen for puzzles that provide clues to the case, such as a missing wallet or suspicious items scattered around the area. Once you have the clues, you can present them to other characters to suss out lies or inconsistencies and gradually unravel the truth of each case. It's a simple, effective gameplay loop that provides a nice balance between the long dialogue sequences typically found in visual novels and the somewhat overwhelming supply of puzzles that you're given in a typical Picross game. For anyone unfamiliar with nonogram puzzles, they're a type of logic puzzle like Sudoku. You have a grid with numbers along the sides, and those numbers provide clues on where to fill in squares on the grid, ultimately revealing a picture. The game starts off simple with 5x5 grids, but by the end will ramp up to 15x15 which provide much more complex puzzles to solve. That said, Murder by Numbers isn't a terribly difficult game, neither in puzzle-solving nor interrogations. For one thing there's basically no penalty for failing at either aside from just trying again, but it also feels like, by combining these two game genres, the developers opted to make both relatively easy so as not to scare off new players. That's not to say there aren't some rare tricky moments, but for the most part it's not hard to comfortably progress through the game. Ultimately this might be a strength of the game—getting bogged down in challenging puzzles can be a drag, and Murder by Numbers keeps its gameplay progress feeling snappy and moving, which ensures the story doesn't drag either. The game is also a bit longer than you'd probably expect. There are only four cases to solve but the last two are particularly long—all told you're looking at over fifteen hours of gameplay, potentially more depending on how quickly or slowly you solve nonogram puzzles. As mentioned though the game never feels like it drags, plus if you want even more content you'll unlock additional bonus puzzles as you progress through the game. As a puzzle game there's not a ton of incentive for replaying the whole experience, but one playthrough still provides plenty of content for the price. Nonogram puzzles can be rather dry in the visual or audio departments, so it's great to see that Murder by Numbers infuses so much personality into its presentation to really make the characters and their stories pop. The artwork is bright and colorful, capturing the 90s setting of the story, and the characters themselves are distinct and memorable. The music is also lively and engaging, and its similarities to Phoenix Wright are no mere coincidence as Ace Attorney composer Masakazu Sugimori worked on the soundtrack. Sugimori certainly has a knack for making catchy songs that meld into the background while heightening the action or dialogue on screen, and that's definitely true for Murder by Numbers as well. Murder by Numbers proves that developer Mediatonic has a keen understanding of not just visual novels and puzzle games, but how to combine them in a clever, engaging way. The writing is charming, the puzzles are satisfying, and the game's stylish presentation ensures there's never a dull moment. Fans of either visual novels or puzzle games owe it to themselves to check out Murder by Numbers, and they may just discover a new love for another genre of gaming along the way. Rating: 8 out of 10 Numbers
  16. How do you keep a franchise feeling fresh game after game? It must be difficult balancing the impulse to repeat the same style/features of a winning formula with branching out and trying something new. For the Paper Mario series, the developers clearly went with the latter by dropping the RPG elements of the first few games and transitioning to a more purely action-adventure system. The change was clumsy, to say the least, and few would disagree that Sticker Star was the low point of the series. Color Splash made some decent steps toward restoring the panache that the franchise is known for, and now Paper Mario: The Origami King pushes forward with even bigger strides. It's still not the RPG experience that many fans most likely hoped for, but The Origami King still does an excellent job of crafting a new adventure brimming with charm. It wouldn't be a Mario game—platformer, RPG, adventure, or otherwise—without our favorite plumber setting off on a quest to rescue Princess Peach. This time she and her entire castle have been overrun by Olly, the self-proclaimed Origami King, who is literally reshaping the world one fold at a time. Mario is aided on his quest by Olivia, Olly's sister, plus you'll see Luigi, Bowser, and dozens of Toads as you work to undo Olly's reign of terror. One of the great strengths of the Paper Mario series is the personality and humor it injects into familiar Mario characters. Sure you get a bit of that in the mainline Mario platformers, but this spin-off series is where the writing can really shine, and The Origami King manages it exceedingly well. Olivia in particular is one of the most delightful companions Mario has ever had. More than just a mouthpiece for Mario or a guide for the player, her story throughout the game is genuinely engaging, and her sweet, friendly demeanor makes her instantly endearing—leave it to Nintendo to make a sentient origami such a lovable character. The game is also jam-packed with puns and various other goofy jokes, most of which are far more charming than they have any right to be. The Origami King places a fairly big emphasis on exploration. The environments are significant, larger than most Paper Mario games, and are filled with little things to interact with. As you explore you can rescue Toads who have been turned into origami shapes, collect items—both usable items and collectibles—from question blocks, and repair holes in the world with confetti wherever the paper has been torn. Each area you explore is filled with these little things to do, and it's a lot of fun to go out of your way to do them all. There's something very simple and satisfying about this kind of collection or checklist completion gameplay, plus there are some wonderfully inventive environments in the game that make exploration much more interesting than simply walking through a field or scaling a mountain. Completionists should love having so much to do in each region. The game's battle system will most likely be a divisive issue among fans once again, since there still isn't an experience points system to actually reward you for battling. However, The Origami King might have the best non-RPG battle system in the series to date. For one thing, you are still rewarded with coins and confetti, both of which are plenty useful. More importantly, this game uses a ring-based battle system which essentially makes every fight a mini-puzzle. In order to efficiently defeat enemies you'll want to line them up in a row (for jump attacks) or arrange them into a square (for hammer attacks). By manipulating the rings on the battlefield, you can move enemies into the ideal formation for your attacks. It helps keep every battle at least a little engaging, and some of the puzzles can get genuinely difficult, so it's not like this is a mindless task in each battle. The really complicated puzzles can be a bit frustrating, but you can also spend coins to get an assist from the Toads you've rescued, which is extremely helpful. The ring system can get tiresome or repetitive if you're doing a lot of battles in a row, and the lack of experience points still somewhat disincentivizes you from actually fighting instead of just avoiding enemies, but it's at least an improvement over recent Paper Mario games. And while you do need to buy equipment to use more powerful attacks, the equipment has a lengthy durability so you don't need to be constantly buying more, unless you're going out of your way to fight every enemy you meet. Boss fights take the ring-based battle mechanic one step further with a more elaborate puzzle system. This time Mario is navigating the battlefield and needs to follow arrows on the ground in order to get close enough to attack the boss. It scratches a puzzle/strategy game itch where you get the satisfaction of seeing your plans fall into place, which in this case means delivering a devastating attack against giant bosses. There are also specific strategies you'll need to employ to properly damage most bosses, and just figuring out the right steps can be an engaging challenge. In the end, The Origami King finds a unique and interesting battle system even without the standard RPG elements. It's arguable that those RPG elements would only further improve the experience, but at least battles don't feel like completely lopsided time wasters in this game. The Origami King is also a lot longer than you might expect. Given the lack of RPG mechanics, you might expect the game to skew toward a more typical action-adventure length, but there's still quite a lot to do here, and the early parts of the game in particular can be decently time-consuming. You can expect a good thirty hours or so out of the game, more if you go after all of the little collectibles that the game has to offer (including a fishing mini-game, because every game has a fishing mini-game these days). The visuals in the game are just a joy to look at, and once again push the envelope of what a world built entirely out of paper and craft supplies can be. The real-world constructed feel of the game is beautiful, and combined with the simplicity of 2D character designs it creates a rather striking yet also mellow and charming visual identity for the game. The origami characters are excellent as well, and manage to capture a realistic feel and weight of paper while still fitting perfectly with Paper Mario's aesthetic. And Olivia's adorable design is undeniably a part of what makes her so endearing. There are also some surprisingly gorgeous special effects at play here, notably the water and soil effects during specific scenes of the game, which feels like the developers showing off what the Switch can really do (and will hopefully be put to use in a new Pikmin game?). The soundtrack is excellent as well and thankfully doesn't rely too much on recycling familiar Mario tunes—it's fun to hear those songs again from time to time, but nothing beats originality, and The Origami King has some fantastic original tunes. Paper Mario: The Origami King still refuses to embrace the RPG mechanics that made the early games in the series such a smash hit with fans, but the compromises it concocts might be enough to make up for it. The ring-based battle system is a fun novelty, even if its charm does wear off at times, and the emphasis on exploration has provided a vibrant Mushroom Kingdom filled with fun and unique set pieces. Most importantly, the humor and personality of Paper Mario is well-represented here, from the pun-filled dialogue to the absolutely adorable adventure partner, Olivia. If Paper Mario can't return to its RPG roots, it has at least found a quality, engaging niche with The Origami King. Rating: 8 out of 10 Folds
  17. Metro Redux combines Metro 2033 and Metro: Last Light into a single survival-horror FPS package. Originally released in 2010 and 2013 respectively, the two games follow the story of Dmitry Glukhovsky's novels, wherein nuclear war has created an apocalyptic landscape overrun by mutated beasts and people now live underground in the metro subway systems of Moscow. Both games exude atmosphere and style, even if the performance on the Switch has some ups and downs. More problematic, though, is the blend of survival mechanics and FPS action, which leads to some disappointing aspects of both. In Metro 2033, you play as Artyom, a young man living in a small station of the Metro who embarks on a quest to Polis, the capital of the Metro, after his station is attacked by mysterious creatures known as the Dark Ones that seem to possess psychic powers. Along the way Artyom gains allies and guides to help him on the journey, and perhaps understand the mysterious origins of the Dark Ones. The post-apocalyptic aspect of the story is solid even if it feels like it's been done before (i.e., even with vicious mutated beasts hounding the human population, the real danger is, as always, your fellow man), but the supernatural aspects of the story provide a real sense of intrigue. Metro 2033 explains very little to you outright, so it's more about immersing yourself in the world and lore of the game, which is pretty satisfying. Unfortunately the supernatural elements also feel a bit underused in Metro 2033, but thankfully they become more of a focus in Metro: Last Light's story, which also stars Artyom. Artyom himself is a bit odd as a protagonist, since during gameplay he is the classic silent, blank slate character (which also means other characters are constantly talking at you in order to tell you where to go or what to look at) but you can also find diaries written by Artyom which help flesh out the world's storytelling and adds insight to his personality. It feels unnecessary to divide Artyom's characterization like this, but at least he has some personality—you just have to find it. The Metro games might best be described as atmospheric FPS games. Unlike the typical action-focused FPS experience, both Metro games blend stealth gameplay, survival mechanics, and some scares into first-person shooter gameplay. You're actually free to approach most situations with either stealth or an all-out gunfight, though you'll always be limited by the amount of ammo you're able to scrounge up or purchase with the rare currency you can find. Whatever your playstyle preference, the atmosphere is tense as you struggle to survive against monsters and men. And whatever your playstyle preference, the Metro experience can be challenging, partly due to your limited assets and partly due to somewhat clunky gameplay design. Neither the stealth nor the gunplay feels quite ideal. Your movement and aim control are just a little too clunky to efficiently sneak around or to aim quickly and sharply, especially against monsters that will run at you and knock you around in a fury of claw attacks. Your field of vision is also limited compared to other games that focus entirely around stealth, which can be a little frustrating at times. The biggest annoyance though is when the game throws waves and waves of enemies at you like a typical FPS game, yet your limited ammo makes it hard to just go wild against fast-moving monster enemies. Metro: Last Light in particular features several large-scale battles that are more tedious than they are engaging. All that said, none of these complaints fully spoil the experience of creeping through derelict tunnels and desolate environments, but they can take you out of the game at times. The games' survival mechanics mainly center around the limited supplies that you're able to find and carry, especially filters for your gas mask which is required anytime you're on the surface or anywhere else with hazardous elements. Each filter has a limited use, which essentially puts a time limit on you whenever you don the mask—it can get tense at times when you only barely make it to a safe zone on your last filter. The most unique survival mechanic though is the way currency works. Instead of paper or metal money you actually trade bullets—powerful, military-grade bullets to be precise. You can use these powerful bullets in any machine gun, or you can use them to buy supplies when you're at a settlement. It's a really novel way of approaching the limited resources challenge of a survival game, and will definitely leave you questioning how best to use your resources. The game's controls have a few odd quirks, mostly due to using a controller as opposed to a mouse and keyboard. All of the basics—moving, aiming, shooting—are functionally fine with a controller, even if they're a bit too slow as previously mentioned, but the Metro games use an odd system for menus. Rather than having a typical pause menu for swapping guns, equipping gear like the gas mask, or checking your current goal, you have to use a combination of button presses to bring up these options. It's not terribly complicated after playing for a while, but it's a weird and unnecessary way of reinventing the wheel. Although the games run admirably well on the Switch's hardware, the one point of issue that stands out is the loading screen. Both games are divided up into little chapters and every time you enter a new one you're treated to a fairly lengthy loading screen. The good news is that this only happens when you start a new chapter—if you die and retry the loading screen is much shorter. Still, it's an annoyance that's hard to ignore. Each game lasts about ten hours, which isn't bad for a two-pack game bundle. There are also various difficulty levels to test your skills, and finding all of the diary pages may require another playthrough. Both games also have a small variety of weapons you can use, but since you can only carry three at a time you may want to replay parts of the game or the entire thing to fully experiment with different guns. And although neither game explicitly explains this, it might be worth replaying them to see if you can reach a different outcome by the end. The presentation in both games is notably dated (the first game is a decade old at this point, after all) but putting aside the technical quality of the visual design, the art direction is kind of a victim of its own success. Since the setting is post-apocalyptic, the scenery is understandably drab, full of grays and browns and rubble-strewn tunnels. It definitely succeeds in creating a certain atmosphere, it's just that that atmosphere can be rather boring after a while. The game is also in desperate need of an adjustable brightness setting. Dark shadows is a mainstay of the two games, but it can be difficult to make out what's on screen even when you have your flashlight turned on—playing in handheld mode is particularly difficult thanks to the overwhelming shadows. Thankfully you do eventually gain night vision goggles which helps alleviate the issue somewhat. The sound design is also a bit mixed, because a lot of the voice acting is shaky at best, and at worst it's laughable (notably, the voices for children). But if you're willing to focus on subtitles over audio, you can always switch to Russian voice acting which at least feels more natural given the setting. Metro Redux is a handy package for two decent survival horror FPS games. The games' atmospheric experiences make up somewhat for the rather clunky controls and mechanics of both the stealth and gunplay aspects of the gameplay, and the story is undeniably intriguing, especially when you consider the overarching plot of both games. Players looking for a more story-driven FPS would do well to check out this bundle, though anyone looking for a more purely stealth- or action-oriented game will have to cope with some awkward design choices. Rating: 7 out of 10 Metros
  18. A small, sleepy town is rattled by a double shooting and the local police is quick to rule the matter a murder-suicide, but Detective Michael Stone is determined to uncover the truth in this story-driven mystery game. Rainswept, from developer Frostwood Interactive and publisher 2Awesome Studio, uses simple graphics and basic gameplay elements to tell an emotional, affecting story about love and trauma, and the long-reaching effects of both. It's not a typical adventure experience, but Rainswept has a way of making a lasting impression. You play as Detective Stone, a detective from the big city that has come to the small town of Pineview to help solve an apparent murder-suicide. The victims are a young couple only recently moved to town, and their lack of connections or roots in the community only makes the investigation more complicated. Worse yet, Detective Stone is dealing with his own demons from a troubled past. The basic set-up does have some typical detective story vibes, and even a bit of Twin Peaks influence when things get a little weird, but even if Rainswept relies on some tropes there's still a great buildup around the mystery. It's a slow build, but gradually seeing more of the characters' lives, both the victims' and Stone's, is gripping, and the themes at play here—some of which are quite dark—are handled well and with appropriate delicacy to highlight very human and painful experiences. It's a slow, satisfying story buildup, and yet the ending does feel somewhat rushed. It's not a bad conclusion to the story, it's just that not every element of the ending feels like it fully has time to breathe, which is perhaps only more stark in comparison to the relatively leisurely pace that the rest of the investigation has. There's such weight to the rest of the story and its themes of trauma that the final reveal of what actually happened doesn't have quite the impact it should. As for the actual gameplay, Rainswept is pretty light on interactive elements. Your investigation will take you all around Pineview and you'll have to talk to townsfolk or interact with objects to examine them, but you generally aren't tasked with solving mysteries or resolving clues on your own. You simply examine everything around you and the story plays out, so Rainswept is more of an interactive story than anything. You can occasionally wander the town and talk to people though, which adds a fun bit of world-building to the experience. It would've been nice to have a bit more direct gameplay involvement with how things play out, but ultimately it doesn't detract from the story being told. Rainswept is also not the kind of game you'd typically replay repeatedly, though viewing the story again knowing everything that happens could add an interesting perspective. Realistically, this is the kind of game you play once for a solid six hours or so, which still isn't too bad considering its low price. The game's art style may seem simple at first but in the end it feels oddly appropriate for this small town where people live their lives—or try to live their lives—as simply as possible. The flat 2D visuals also doesn't mean that there aren't some striking scenes peppered throughout the game, and the basic, marionette animation of the characters' movements is oddly charming. The music is by and large moody and atmospheric, exactly what you'd expect from a story-driven detective game, culminating in an excellent final number that manages to capture the mood of the whole experience. Rainswept's quiet, unassuming sense of style may leave it poised for a similar release on the Switch, but you shouldn't overlook this story-driven experience. While the game plays it light on gameplay interactivity, the mystery at the heart of the story and, more importantly, the insight into flawed, emotional, human characters makes this a detective story worth unraveling. Anyone that enjoys a thoughtful, narrative-driven game would do well to check out Rainswept. Rating: 7 out of 10 Raindrops Review copy provided by publisher Rainswept will be available on the Switch eShop on July 24 for $9.99. Pre-purchase before release for a 10% discount: $8.99.
  19. Following in the spiritual footsteps of slow-paced, atmospheric adventure games like Journey, Spirit of the North takes players on a quest across wide-open and solitary landscapes, seen through the eyes of a fox. Instead of boss fights and wild action set-pieces, this game simply gives players the freedom to explore and overcome simple environmental puzzles as the fox journeys closer and closer to a mountain with a mysterious red cloud emanating from it. For games like this, the appeal is in the journey, not the destination, but in Spirit of the North's case, the journey doesn't hold much appeal either. The story draws from Nordic folklore, but you'd honestly not even know it without researching the matter yourself. That's sort of the problem with telling a story in a video game that has no dialogue or text, and not even many cutscenes either. The best you can do is piece together the lore from murals you can find while exploring, but these can be easy to miss. The fox's journey still has a somewhat mysterious appeal given the magical vibe of the game, and it does have its emotionally evocative moments, but in the end it's hard to be invested in it fully. The gameplay in Spirit of the North features some unique elements but is bogged down by poor design choices. One of the first things that may strike you while playing is that the fox is incredibly slow. Even with the ability to run for short distances, it always feels like it takes longer than it should to get anywhere. Granted, that's part of the slow-paced, atmospheric vibe of the game, but paired with some awfully large environments, and particularly environments that don't have a lot in them to actually interact with, the game ends up feeling plodding and a bit boring. This problem is only exacerbated by the game's spirit energy mechanic. Early on in the adventure you gain the ability to absorb blue spiritual energy from nearby flowers and then use the energy in a number of ways, such as lighting up murals, activating stone monuments, or charging up a powerful, darkness-destroying bark. The problem with the spiritual energy system is that you can only hold one charge at a time, which means you are constantly going back and forth between blue flowers and objects you can interact with. Sometimes this limitation is put to clever use, such as reusing the same energy on multiple objects to gradually open up new paths in an interconnected network of rooms, but most of the time the limitation just means you're stuck going back and forth repeatedly. Even though blue flowers are fairly plentiful you're still going to be spending a significant amount of time simply walking back to one in order to solve a puzzle. There really doesn't seem to be any value in this limited system aside from padding out the game's length a bit more. Even controlling the fox doesn't feel particularly smooth or satisfying. Your movements are actually somewhat clumsy, with plenty of awkward collisions and unclear platform placements. The gameplay has none of the fluidity of movement that you'd expect from a typical third-person platformer, which again, to be fair, may be linked to the game's slow, measured style. But when that style means that you'll mess up on lining up a jump correctly because the fox can only jump in certain ways, it makes exploration rather dull. To justify having such large, open landscapes you'd want the fox's movements to be engaging and fun, but they're simply not. The last opportunity to make exploration fun in a game like this is the visual style, but sadly Spirit of the North falls short here as well. Part of the problem comes down to the game's performance on the Switch. The frame rate is at least fairly smooth, but textures are muddier than they should be, and you'll see a lot of pop-in while running (or walking) through the large environments. It's also a failing of the art direction that these icy glaciers, green fields, and dark caverns are frankly pretty boring to look at. The soundtrack, however, fares much better, and has some genuinely engaging and melodic songs that are frankly doing the heavy lifting in building up the atmosphere of the game. The music can also be a little repetitive though, and would have had more emotional impact if it were better matched up to the action on screen, but it's still one of the few highlights of the game. Spirit of the North isn't a particularly long game, though given how slowly the fox moves it might feel longer than it is. You can easily finish in under five hours, depending on how efficiently you solve puzzles such as activating monuments to create a platform. The one aspect of the game that does reward exploration is rescuing the spirits of fallen monks. To do so you need to find a staff and return it to the body of a dead monk. This is actually kind of clever since it's a bit of an Easter egg hunt to find these two halves and bring them together. It can also be quite difficult at times, even ignoring the fox's slow movements. The reward is somewhat middling but if you do want to get the most out of the game it can stretch out the game's length a bit. Spirit of the North uses a light touch on storytelling and gameplay mechanics, but the end result is rather bland instead of atmospheric and alluring. The gameplay limitations that force you into slow, repetitive actions come off as tedious more than anything, while awkward jump mechanics leave much to be desired. Add on a visual style that isn't too impressive on either a technical or design front and Spirit of the North doesn't have a lot going for it on the Switch. Rating: 5 out of 10 Spirits
  20. The Wii U has been positively hemorrhaging its short but strong exclusives catalog. But after Bayonetta and its sequel made the jump to the Switch, it shouldn't be too surprising that another title from Platinum Games would also find a new home on more recent consoles. Plus, The Wonderful 101: Remastered gives a much bigger audience a chance to experience its wacky superhero story and insane action gameplay. For new players though, some of the game's flaws might feel a little more stark compared to fans who already have nostalgia for the original release. You play as a member of the Wonderful 100, a team of heroes equipped with powerful Centinel suits that are able to band together to defend the world from alien invaders. The GEATHJERK Federation is attacking the planet once again, and it's up to you and your fellow heroes to stop them. The writing in The Wonderful 101 absolutely revels in its cheesy Saturday morning cartoon vibes, from the exaggerated Super Sentai/Power Rangers hero team to the goofy (and occasionally fourth-wall-breaking) jokes. The characters can be a bit trope-heavy at times, but even if the story beats feel rather familiar it's still a fun hero story and well told. Like a lot of Platinum Games titles, The Wonderful 101 can seem completely chaotic when you first jump in. All of their games feature fast-paced action, crazy combat combos, and seem to require you to hold off on blinking for minutes at a time to ensure you don't mess up the timing on any attack, and that all describes this game to a tee. It's a wild ride and sometimes it feels like all you can do to keep your head above the water. In fact, The Wonderful 101 can feel particularly insane, even by the standards of similar action games, since you're controlling a group of tiny characters and sometimes the actual action can get lost in all of the colorful effects happening on screen. It's actually a bit of a problem at times, and the game's camera isn't always up to the task of ensuring everything happening on screen is clearly readable. Somehow it manages to ping-pong to both extremes—sometimes the camera is too far away and you'll lose track of your character, other times it's so close that you can't see nearby attacks coming in from off-screen. The indoors segments also make an awkward transition from the Wii U version of the game, where they played out on the Gamepad to give you an up-close view of the action. Now, limited to a single screen, the game uses a picture-in-picture technique which is serviceable but not ideal. And even more so than other Platinum Games titles, The Wonderful 101 has a pretty steep learning curve. It's difficult to learn how to play perfectly in any of their games—they're all essentially made to be played repeatedly, so that each playthrough further refines your skills—but a lot of best practices are particularly opaque in The Wonderful 101, such as learning when best to block and when best to dodge, or how to interrupt enemies or pull back and pick your moment to strike. The oftentimes relentless speed of combat in this game can make the learning process a real trial by fire. Once you do learn the ins and outs the combat can be a lot of fun, it's just a little discouraging to reach that point. Plus the least interesting parts of the combat are undeniably the times where you're required to use a specific weapon or technique. One of the coolest things about the game—in fact, the whole hook of its combat system—is the way you can draw shapes to morph your Wonderful 100 heroes into different weapons, such as a fist, sword, or gun. Stringing together chains of attacks with different morphed weapons is flashy and fun, and smacking around colossal enemies with a giant fist made up of heroes linked together is pretty damn satisfying. The annoying parts of the game are when you have to use a specific weapon due to a specific enemy weakness, such as heavily armored enemies that need to be cracked open with the hammer before you can deal any real damage. Limiting you to a single weapon is a bit tedious, and I would argue that the hammer in particular is one of the least fun weapons to use, so the requirement feels like a real hassle. I have to address the change in controllers as well, since drawing shapes is quite different when you can only use the right control stick instead of drawing directly on the Gamepad's screen. The Switch can technically do either since you can use the touchscreen in handheld mode, but playing on the TV limits you to the control stick which can be rather obnoxious when it comes to the more complex shapes. Quickly drawing a circle or straight line with the control stick is no problem, but anything more complex had me missing the Gamepad quite a bit, where the combo allowed for both precision (with the touch screen) or speed (with the control stick). Obviously the solution is to just play in handheld mode, but it's limiting, and only further exacerbates some of the game's camera issues. All that said, when you get down to the core gameplay of The Wonderful 101, it can be a blast. Combat is challenging (and occasionally feels rather punishing) but the fast-paced action is satisfying, and the game peppers in a lot of variety in the form of chases, shooter segments, and even a boss fight that uses Punch-Out mechanics. However, the pacing of the game does seem to drag at times. Each level of the game consists of several smaller missions, and sometimes these missions just go on and on. Breaking them up a bit more might have made the fifteen hour length feel a bit less plodding. The game's presentation remains a colorful blend of insane action scenes with a cartoony art style. It may not be the kind of action game you'd normally expect to see but there's no denying the big action set-pieces are dazzling. The soundtrack is also one of the few areas of the game to see a significant remastering as songs are remixed. The change might only be noticeable to die hard fans though as the game's original soundtrack was already a fast-paced, high energy musical accompaniment to the heroic action on screen. The Wonderful 101: Remastered gives a niche action game a chance to reach a far wider audience, and in that regard it should be considered a success. The fact that it does little to touch up some of the more glaring annoyances of the original game, and arguably adds more with the slightly more restrictive control scheme, is a bit disappointing though. The wild action and flashy combat will definitely appeal to a certain type of fan, but anyone unfamiliar with the typical foibles of a Platinum Games' work may find it tedious, at least on any difficulty level higher than easy. For any of the millions of Switch owners that never played this on the Wii U though, The Wonderful 101: Remastered is definitely worth checking out—just be prepared for steep learning curves and slightly clunky cameras. Rating: 7 out of 10 Wonderful Ones
  21. Sometimes all you really want out of a game is to just tune out for a while and chase a high score that you can show off to your friends, just like the classic arcade experience. #Funtime, with its explosions of color and wireframe graphics, is perfectly evocative of an afternoon at the arcade, where your eyes start to blur from staring at the screen for too long but you can't blink and risk ruining your high score run. From developer One Guy Games and publisher The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild, #Funtime is a simple but stylish twin-stick shooter perfect for quick bursts of gameplay. #Funtime takes the classic twin-stick shooter game design and introduces a few twists to make the experience a bit more unique and fresh. In addition to simply shooting the various geometric obstacles that float toward you, you can also press the ABXY buttons to change the color of your ship, which leaves a trail of color behind you as you move. Swapping colors has both offensive and defensive benefits: enemies of the same color that move into your trail will explode for triple the points that you'd normally earn from shooting them. Your ship is also immune to damage from the same color that it currently is, so for example if you swap to red you can pass through red lasers and destroy red enemies behind you. It's a simple addition to the twin-stick shooter formula but it has a significant impact on how you play. There's this entire new level of strategy at work that you can use or ignore at your peril. In the heat of things it's easy to overlook swapping colors, but adapting to what's on-screen is vital, especially if you want to keep your high score multiplier. There are also various game modes that highlight the color mechanic further, such as a mode that gives you small safe zones scattered around the map that you can only enter when you're the same color. That's the other key feature that helps #Funtime stand out: the different game modes give you a decent amount of variety to enjoy, so the challenge of high score chasing never really grows old. If you get tired of playing the classic score chasing modes there are also mazes that require you to dodge obstacles to reach the goal, or survival levels where the objective is to simply survive as long as you can. Arguably the highlight of the game's various modes though is Funtime, which equips your ship with a giant flail that you can spin around to destroy enemies. The catch is that the flail will also damage you if you're not the same color, and of course you'll eventually be inundated with enemies and flashing colors all over the screen. It's chaotic fun to just wreck things while wildly spinning around, and it really captures the satisfaction of arcade-y destruction. In addition to challenge levels, #Funtime also has endless arcade modes with online leaderboards. The curious thing about the arcade modes though is that you have to gradually unlock various abilities and features. You start off with just one hit point, and as you earn points you can purchase additional health, stronger guns, the ability to color swap, and other boosters. It's an interesting way of giving the arcade a sense of progression, but it is also quite jarring to go from a challenge level with every weapon/ability at your disposal back to square one in the arcade. The abilities you unlock are persistent at least, so you only have to unlock them once, meaning it's really just the first handful of matches in the arcade that you'll feel particularly underpowered. There are a couple of other quirks in #Funtime that can impact the experience. Swapping colors with the ABXY buttons makes a decent amount of sense since each button is assigned to a different color, so you can quickly swap to the color you need in a split-second—sometimes that split-second action is the difference between life and death. The problem is you have to take your thumb off of the right control stick, i.e. you have to stop firing while you swap colors. It's only for a split-second but that also can make a huge difference. Again, the control scheme makes sense for what you're working with on a standard controller, but it's not quite ideal. The other minor issue comes from the visual design that can make asteroid obstacles super hard to see at a glance. Granted, it feels like a design choice to make them difficult to make out and hence more dangerous, but sometimes the small ones feel nigh invisible against the black backdrop of the game. Otherwise the simple, retro visual style is really quite charming. Sure there's nothing particularly elaborate at a glance, but when you're being bombarded from all sides by enemy attacks, the clear readability of the brightly colored shapes is invaluable. The soundtrack is also pretty sharp and completes the heart-pumping arcade atmosphere that the game is recreating. There does unfortunately seem to be a persistent glitch that will cause the music to cut out, and the only fix is closing and restarting the game. And you'll really want the background audio, since blasting shapes from all sides doesn't have the same effect when it's completely silent. #Funtime is a simple, sleek, and stylish twin-stick shooter that introduces enough twists to make a classic gameplay formula feel unique and engaging. There are plenty of challenge levels and arcade modes to keep you occupied, but like any high score-chasing game the real longevity of this game depends on how much you enjoy refining and perfecting your score. If that clicks for you, #Funtime provides a great arcade experience perfect for quick bursts of play time on the Switch. Rating: 7 out of 10 Colors Review copy provided by publisher #Funtime will be available on the Switch eShop on July 16 for $14.99.
  22. Clearly no concept is too peculiar for the world of video games since Wilmot's Warehouse builds an entire game around the concept of organizing objects in a warehouse to fulfill orders. But the craziest thing is just how fun it is to do that. Scratching a very particular relaxed-puzzle-game itch, Wilmot's Warehouse is an oddly compelling example of simple, addictive gameplay. The game doesn't try to build any kind of narrative around its gameplay—which is almost certainly for the best. You simply play as a square face who picks up and pushes square icons around a large black warehouse. You'll receive orders and will need to pick up the required icons and bring them to the top of the warehouse for delivery. Between deliveries you'll receive a shipment of new stock, including more and more different icons, and it's up to you to organize the warehouse in a logical way that makes it easy for you to fulfill orders quickly, because you do earn stars for delivering in a timely manner. You also have limited time between orders, so you need to be able to organize your warehouse efficiently lest you get overwhelmed with new shipments. Thankfully you do get occasional periods of unlimited time to organize your stock however you want, which is vital if you want to be able to find things easily. That's really all there is to Wilmot's Warehouse. It makes for an undeniably repetitive game—you unlock some upgrades but fundamentally there's very little different about the gameplay from your first order to your last—but it's also a wonderfully calming experience. Having this little video game world where all you have to do is keep your things tidy is oddly compelling, and certainly hits something in your brain's weird need/desire to organize things. It's a simple, repetitive task that is so satisfying precisely because it offers a basic, clear-cut goal. It's the video game equivalent of tidying your room or performing light manual labor like gardening and somehow manages to replicate the same feeling of a job well done. Wilmot's Warehouse is definitely a relaxed gaming experience, even if you do have to contend with timers and, by the end of the game, have such a cluttered warehouse that it can feel a bit overwhelming. One of the unique things about the game though is how the difficulty is kind of dictated by your own actions. Initially you have a small, random group of icons to work with, but once you're dealing with dozens or hundreds of items you might want to organize them in logical ways that make it easy to remember where things are. For example, I made a "summer items" area for things like popsicles, tents, maps, and parasols, as well as a "science items" area for microscopes, thermometers, and eyeglasses. How you organize things is entirely up to you, which is what makes the difficulty level so fluid. If you create and maintain strict item groupings, you might have an easier time remembering where something might be when you're dealing with 100+ items in your warehouse. Placing things randomly might be more of a "hard mode," requiring you to simply remember where everything is. There's also some challenge in deciding where each item should logically go—would eyeglasses fit my "science items" section better or my "clothing items" area? There's a lot of freedom in how you decide to organize your warehouse and how you play the game, which makes it a lot of fun to see how other people arrange their inventory. All that said, the game does actually have an expert mode if you want something a little more challenging, which limits some of your abilities to make you work harder. Probably the biggest change is limiting the time you can freely organize your stock. In normal mode these respites are vital to keeping the warehouse neatly arranged, but in expert mode they become yet another frantic period of fast-paced organizing. Because of this, expert mode kind of does away with the relaxed, zen nature of the game, but it's still a fun way of testing your skills, especially since the main game will probably only take you six or seven hours to complete. There's also a split-screen co-op mode which presents its own challenges and frantic moments, but it's a fun experience to share with a friend. The presentation of the game is the definition of simplicity—your player character is literally just a box with a face, after all. Still, the simplicity is appealing and reinforces the game's simple and calming tone, and having clear icons is hugely important when you need to find things quickly. Though the game still throws some curveballs at you, like the numerous icons that are simple color patterns, seemingly designed just to mess with you based on how similar they are. The soundtrack is also, not surprisingly, quite calming and atmospheric. It's nothing too fancy, but serves as perfect background music when you're shuffling through your warehouse, making sure all of your inventory is in its proper place. Wilmot's Warehouse creates a beautifully addictive experience out of the simple premise of organizing items. Though undeniably repetitive, the simplicity of the gameplay makes that repetition more of a zen experience than a tedious one. Anyone that likes to keep their surroundings organized will surely find Wilmot's Warehouse delightfully compelling, and even if you're not a compulsive tidier you'll find the game to be an engrossing and unique puzzle game. Rating: 8 out of 10 Items
  23. It's been a decade since the original Xenoblade Chronicles was released on the Wii in Japan, and eight years since it was finally brought to North American shores, but the charm of Shulk's adventure with the Monado hasn't waned one bit. This is undeniably an epic JRPG, the kind that takes players on a massive journey to witness the humble origins of a handful of characters, through their transformation into powerful adventurers. But the Wii has understandably been left in the past, and now Switch owners get to experience the entire saga with Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition, a remastering that brings some welcome adjustments to the original game's features and adds a 10-hour epilogue to round out some characters' stories. Whether you're an old fan, a new player, or first heard of Shulk from Smash Bros., this is an RPG worth checking out on the Switch. The setting of Xenoblade Chronicles is arguably one of the most unique in RPGs—or any game, really. The world that Shulk and his friends inhabit is actually composed of the corpses of two giant dead gods, the Bionis and the Mechonis, who killed each other in a duel long ago. Sadly the inhabitants of these two giants continue to wage war on one another as the Mechon of Mechonis attack and pillage the peoples of the Bionis. Shulk has one ace up his sleeve though thanks to the Monado, a mysterious sword that has the power to easily slay Mechons. Xenoblade Chronicles introduces you to a lot of great, charming characters as you traverse the bodies of the two gods and slowly unravel the truth behind the Monado. The game has its cliches and melodramatic moments sure, but it's an engaging adventure story nonetheless, with plenty of twists and turns. It's hard not to like these characters, even the goofy "mascot" character Riki, a tiny furry creature called a Nopon whose broken English is surprisingly more charming than not. It's absolutely a mark of quality that a game this long can keep the story fully engaging from start to finish. One of the pillars of this game's design is the massive environment that allows you to explore in just about any direction while fighting or avoiding monsters of all shapes, sizes, and experience levels. Back during its original release the wide open vistas were arguably more novel than they are today, as we've had not only two sequels in the Xenoblade Chronicles series but a variety of other RPGs that embrace the sandbox style of exploration. Even so, running wild in Xenoblade Chronicles remains an absolute blast. Whether you're exploring to progress the story, fulfill a side quest, or just want to see what you can uncover, the sense of freedom is amazing and can easily turn a thirty minute play session into a three hour one. Combat is, naturally, another crucial aspect of RPG design, and Xenoblade Chronicles' real-time, action-oriented system makes combat particularly engaging. You can form a party of three characters but only directly control one. By running up to enemies you'll auto-attack, but the more important aspect of battling is using and managing your selection of Arts (essentially skills or spells). Arts have cooldowns so you'll need to be thoughtful about when you use them, plus they'll often have special effects, such as Shulk's Backslash that is more powerful when attacking an enemy from behind. Each character has their own selection of Arts which can offer a decent bit of variety as you play and experiment with whom to control in battle, as well as which characters combine well together. Some Arts combo well together, and oftentimes you'll need to rely on your AI-controlled teammates to finish a combo you start. For the most part the AI behaves intelligently, though the more technical characters are still best left in your direct control. Regardless of who you're using, combat has a lively feel to it that keeps even normal encounters engaging. For an RPG of this length battles can't help but feel a bit rote eventually, but overall Xenoblade Chronicles' system keeps that feeling to a minimum. The game is also jam-packed with side quests to tackle, ranging from simple "defeat X number of monsters" to little side stories about the lives of background characters. The quest list can be daunting if you let them pile up, but it's undeniably satisfying to check off these little goals as you play. They also provide great incentive to explore the Bionis fully, and of course the rewards are always useful. The Definitive Edition makes some handy adjustments to the quest system that makes it easier than ever to track your active quests and conveniently point you in the right direction. For a game this big, this is an invaluable adjustment and definitely makes clearing out your quest list feel more doable. So what else is new in the Definitive Edition? A lot of it comes down to little adjustments that provide quality of life updates. The menu UI, for example, has been simplified a bit and, compared to the original, is much neater and more readable. There are also sliding difficulty options that can help you find the right balance. For players that love tackling every side quest possible, Expert Mode is a godsend since it allows you to bank experience points instead of using them immediately (a similar system was found in Xenoblade Chronicles 2). This means you can do all the side quests you like without becoming completely overpowered for the main quest, and can still spend those extra experience points to level up whenever you want—I highly recommend turning Expert Mode on as early as possible. You're also able to adjust the appearance of each character's armor. Xenoblade Chronicles has a wide variety of armor pieces which will oftentimes make your characters look absurd when you're mixing and matching pieces to give the best stats. Now you can set a specific look for each character which is more visually pleasing and also is simply a convenient way of seeing what each piece of armor in the game looks like on each character. There's also a new Time Attack Mode that throws uniquely challenging battles at you and rewards you with stylish new armor as well as other bonus items. There are a handful of other minor updates to the game, and taken in total they make an already great game feel smoother and more accessible. The biggest addition is of course the new epilogue called Future Connected, which follows Shulk and Melia as well as two new Nopon characters one year after the events of the main game. Conveniently, you can start this epilogue at any time from the main menu, you don't have to play through the entire 60+ hour game to try this new content (though it's still worth doing that if you don't remember the ending too well). Future Connected provides a brand new location to explore—which was actually cut from the original game—and tells a slightly more personal story of how the characters are coping with the changes that the main story wrought. It's fantastic to get to experience new content in Xenoblade Chronicles, and the best part is easily the "Quiet Moments" you can find while exploring, which are short, optional cutscenes between two characters that are both cute and heartfelt. The combat system also features a slight change in how chain-attacks work, and actually brings even more Nopon into the mix. All that said, don't expect a wildly new take on the Xenoblade Chronicles formula or surprising revelations about the characters. Future Connected is an enjoyable epilogue and well worth the 10+ hours it takes to play through it, but there are also times where it felt like it could have been more than just a brief continuation, and should have had a more impactful storyline to serve as the final word on the game. In the end though, it's hard to argue with more content. The Definitive Edition's visual upgrade is a light touch, but that's not to say it's bad. Rather than completely overhauling the graphics and visual style of the original, this remaster essentially boosts Xenoblade Chronicles into the HD era, and makes the game look like how it probably lives in your memory, with somewhat cleaner, crisper graphics and brighter colors. A more thorough upgrade would have been nice, especially given how noticeably flat some of the environment textures look now, but Xenoblade Chronicles still has a great art style that's colorful and varied. It's not going to compete with brand new games developed in 2020, but the game's breathtaking locations like Satorl Marsh at night will still be enough to stop you in your tracks to take in the scenery. The soundtrack got a slightly more thorough remastered upgrade, and it sounds fantastic. The music was always wonderfully varied and full of personality, and now the clear, crisp sound quality does justice to the arrangements. Ten years have done very little to dull the brilliance of Xenoblade Chronicles. The game remains a beautifully engaging JRPG that draws players into a unique world that is fun to simply live in and walk around in, not to mention going on an epic quest of survival and revenge. Xenoblade Chronicles: Definitive Edition not only helps introduce that experience to a new and wider audience, it brings with it some invaluable adjustments as well as a welcome epilogue that lets players explore the unique landscapes of the game for just that much longer. Xenoblade Chronicles is well worth playing on any of its available systems, but this version is, as the subtitle would suggest, undoubtedly the best. Rating: 10 out of 10 Arts
  24. The mystique of the wild west, with its lawless gunfights and desolate landscapes, makes a perfect background for a fast-paced and frantic roguelike action game. Colt Canyon, from developer Retrific and publisher Headup Games, puts you in the pixel boots of a cowboy on a bloody path of revenge after his partner is kidnapped. The game distills cowboy gunfights down to quick, 2D shootouts against hordes of enemies and deadly animals, all with randomly generated scenery, weapons, and upgrades. Like most roguelikes Colt Canyon can be brutally difficult, but the wild west still holds a certain appeal. Colt Canyon essentially plays like a twin-stick shooter, with some important differences. For one, this is a roguelike, meaning every time you play you'll get a slightly different experience since environments and item drops are randomly generated. The genre is all about adapting to the types of challenges the game throws at you rather than simply memorizing what to do next, which is great for ensuring the game feels fresh even after dozens of playthroughs. I say playthroughs, but it'd be pretty optimistic to expect to finish the game quickly or frequently. Colt Canyon can be brutally difficult, even after a few hours of practice. Some of that will be down to luck of the draw, since you might find a gun you really love on one attempt but then on the next never seem to see it. But the game is also just plain challenging, and will put your twitch gaming skills to the test. Even though the core mechanics of shooting and dodging are simple enough that anyone can easily jump straight into the game, mastering them to survive against the overwhelming odds thrown at you can take some serious skill, as well as lots of failed attempts before finally reaching the end of the game. What makes a successful roguelike though is how fun the journey is, not the destination. In that regard, Colt Canyon can be a blast. The shooting and dodging mechanics are quick and snappy, and tearing through dusty landscapes leaving trails of blood in your wake is pretty satisfying. You feel like a one-man wrecking crew, a classic Western gunman, and it's an awfully fun role to dive into. That said, Colt Canyon does have a few annoying quirks. The main annoyance throughout the entire game is managing your ammo. This is a Western setting after all, so it makes sense that most of the guns have small capacities, and finding the right time to reload in the middle of a shootout adds a layer of challenge (especially when you have a bear charging at you). But the constant need to scrounge for ammo can be exhausting, and it's something that doesn't change much even as you get better at the game. Ammo can be dropped by defeated enemies or found in the plentiful jars, crates, and chests littering the environment, but the rate at which you collect ammo feels low compared to how quickly you use up those bullets. Constantly gathering ammo is a bit of a mindless chore that slows down the snappy pace of the game a bit too much, especially since it's something you'll have to do every time you start a new game. One of the most important aspects of a roguelike is variety, which keeps the gameplay feeling fresh every time you start over from the beginning again. Colt Canyon's variety is okay, but it definitely feels like there's room for improvement. Part of the problem is simply the limitation of a Western setting—there are only so many different types of revolvers, shotguns, and rifles that fit a wild west theme. The upgrades you can gain from rescuing civilians also aren't terribly varied. They're all useful certainly, but after a handful of playthroughs it doesn't feel like there's a ton of room for experimentation. You'll also unlock a few different characters to play as, each of whom has different stats and starting weapons, plus there's a local co-op mode to further shake things up. There's still enough variety to allow for plenty of different approaches to the game, but I found myself wanting a bit more. The minimalist pixel art style is undeniably striking, and a pretty clever way of conveying the somewhat bleak, desolate landscape of a typical Western. It's stylish as well as functional since enemies stand out starkly against the sepia-toned scenery. The only downside is that hazards aren't quite as clearly visible. Hazardous terrain like thorny brush has a red tint and glows slightly, but the effect is hard to notice when you're racing through dusty canyons. The soundtrack also has a great wild west vibe that feels straight out of a spaghetti Western. It's at times moody and heroic, and a great backdrop for a gunslinging adventure. Colt Canyon offers a stylishly minimalist Western adventure that will easily pull players in with its simple and snappy gun mechanics. True to the roguelike genre the game can be brutally challenging, but players that appreciate the journey over the destination will enjoy tackling the game's challenges with six-shooter and dynamite in hand. A bit more variety in the weapons and mechanics could have made the gameplay loop feel less repetitive, but as a quick pick-up-and-play challenge, Colt Canyon provides a memorable journey into the wild west. Rating: 7 out of 10 Canyons Review copy provided by publisher Colt Canyon is available now on the Switch eShop for $14.99.
  25. In the proud tradition of turning mundane activities into fun-filled video games, Moving Out transforms the hassle of moving into a frantic, co-operative race to put boxes on a truck by any means necessary. Taking obvious cues from the Overcooked! games (not surprisingly, as this game is also published by Team17), Moving Out focuses on wacky local co-op shenanigans, and is at its best when played with friends. It's when played solo that the game's slightly repetitive cracks are apparent. You play as a Furniture Arrangement and Removal Technician, which means frantically throwing boxes, appliances, and furniture into a moving van as quickly as possible. Up to four players can team up to speed up the process, though more players does mean slightly more difficult challenges, such as more fragile items that will break if tossed around haphazardly. That can be tricky since the best way to earn a fast time and a gold medal is to basically behave as wildly as possible: throw boxes through windows, off second story balconies, and occasionally launch them through the air via giant fans. As you progress the hazards in your path will grow crazier and crazier, pushing the limits of your moving skills. It gets utterly silly and is a blast to simply play around with the wacky physics that affect the game's world. Your character has a fairly loose sense of movement but it suits the frantic nature of the game—getting a box into the van would be a lot less interesting if it was perfectly easy to navigate the level. Moving Out also hits a fairly decent balance of wacky physics that aren't too frustrating. Occasionally you might curse the way heavy objects require a bit of momentum to move or how large objects can get stuck on corners, but even so the wacky physics feel right for the game. One wacky hazard that does stick out though is the conveyor belt, where objects can too easily get caught and, even worse, cause an entire blockade as more boxes pile up. It's one of the few times that the game feels unfair. But even with more and more hazards piling up with each level, it's hard to shake off the repetitive nature of the game. It's especially apparent when playing solo but even when you're playing with friends the gameplay can feel a bit too simple at times—oftentimes you don't even need to cooperate and each player can do their own thing to easily succeed. The core gameplay mechanics simply don't evolve over the course of the game, which isn't inherently bad but does leave something to be desired after playing for a few hours. It also doesn't help that there's a big emphasis on replaying levels in Moving Out. Aside from earning a gold/silver/bronze medal based on your speed, there are also three optional objectives in each stage that will earn you bonus tokens (both medals and tokens unlock additional mini-missions). The bonus objectives range from adding extra-challenging tasks to silly, oddball tasks to make the most out of every stage. It's nice to have some additional objectives, though somewhat annoyingly these bonus tasks are hidden until you finish the stage once, hence the emphasis on replaying stages over and over. I should also mention that the game features an impressive array of accessibility options. Rather than having a flat easy mode, you can customize the game's difficulty aspects to find the right balance for you. For example, you can extend the time limit to make earning gold medals easier, or you can make objects disappear once they're inside the moving van (one of the trickier tasks on any stage is arranging the furniture in the van to ensure everything fits). You can turn on one of these assist mode options, both, or go with neither and play on the standard difficulty. It's impressive to see a game take the extra step to make the "easy mode" option customizable and accessible for any player's preference. Much like Overcooked, there isn't much fancy design work going into the visuals of Moving Out, but the fun, colorful art style suits the gameplay perfectly. Even if the backgrounds are somewhat repetitive it's much more important that the objects are easily readable while you race against the clock. And much like Overcooked you can unlock a variety of oddball characters to play as, which is always a fun treat. The soundtrack has a real 80s vibe to it which for some reason fits the game nicely—perhaps it's because the game opens with a cheesy instructional video for new employees. Regardless, the music fits both the gameplay and the humor of the game. Moving Out is another charming local co-op experience on the Switch. The physics-based action is suitably wacky without getting too tedious, and although the gameplay can feel undeniably repetitive at times, having a friend or two along for the ride helps elevate the furniture moving experience. Moving Out's colorful charm and goofy sense of humor turns a real-life chore into a virtual party. Rating: 7 out of 10 Boxes
×
×
  • Create New...