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[What if Jet Set Radio played as good as it looked?]

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TalkBack / Bomb Rush Cyberfunk (Switch) Review

« on: August 26, 2023, 06:34:00 AM »

What if Jet Set Radio played as good as it looked?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/64643/bomb-rush-cyberfunk-switch-review

Let’s get the elephant out of the room right away. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a new Jet Set Radio game. In the grand tradition of indie studios creating spiritual successors to dormant franchises, none have been so blatant in their lifting of source material. Everything about its gameplay and style is nearly identical to the SEGA classic, from the level progression, art direction, urban industrial locations, character proportions, and breakdancing animations, down to the eclectic soundtrack featuring tracks from composer Hideki Naganuma. Team Reptile has made it apparent the only thing keeping Bomb Rush from being Jet Set is pesky copyright law. And that’s not a slight; it’s high praise.

Jet Set Radio is the ultimate vibe game. The kind of game that stands out not with mechanics but through sheer force of artistic identity; capturing the rebellious optimism of hip-hop culture in the Y2K era with pioneering cel-shaded graphics, funky fresh beats, and memorable characters. It's a style that is of its time and yet hasn’t aged a day. The same can’t be said for the controls. The Dreamcast original suffered the woes of many early 3D games of its time, with stiff unwieldy controls that betray the promise of being a nimble punk on skates hitting tricks, doing crime, and leaving the Five-0 in your dust. Jet Set Radio Future on XBOX improved the formula by modernizing the control scheme, but that didn’t mean it was polished. There was always a chasm in quality between the style and setting of Jet Set Radio and its minute-to-minute gameplay. Bomb Rush Cyberfunk finally closes that gap.

You play as Red and the rest of the Bomb Rush Crew rising up the ranks in New Amsterdam trying to earn enough rep to take on rival gangs across the five boroughs and become All City. Graffiti is how you earn rep, and painting pieces over those of your rivals is the way to get their attention. It’s up to you to find the spots to paint, and more importantly, learn how to reach them. At its core, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk is a 3D platformer on wheels. Whether it's skateboards, BMX bikes, or in-line skates, you’re using these along with your boostpack to explore the semi-open world, discover secrets, and reach the places you’ll tag. Once you’ve earned enough rep, you can challenge your rivals in a head-to-head competition to earn the most points within 2 minutes.

Points are earned by building combos with tricks. These tricks can be performed at any time by pressing A, Y, or X, but you must be in the air, grinding a rail, or doing a manual to keep up the combo streak. Multipliers can be gained by taking hard corners on rails or by riding walls. But don’t think you can grind the same rails and ride the same walls; each one has to be new to count. Similarly, spamming the same trick will become stale, so your tricks need to be mixed up to net the most points.

It sounds technical on paper, but in practice, it's absolutely electric. There is nothing quite like building speed, chaining a sequence of rail grinds, manuals, wall rides, jumps, mid-air dashes, and boosts to run up the number as high as you can take it, only to bail and eagerly do it all over again. It’s the mark of a great movement system when you catch yourself not progressing at all in the story or side objectives, but instead jamming out to the stellar soundtrack and hitting tricks for minutes on end for no other reason than the satisfaction of pulling off another killer combo. It’s the feeling I always hoped to experience with Jet Set Radio but never got to due to the everpresent jank. Team Reptile delivers what SEGA and Smilebit could not by honing a movement system that lowers the skill floor for newcomers by creating something that is polished and approachable while raising the skill ceiling with more nuances to master.

         

The level design complements the movement beautifully. These urban playgrounds contain collectibles in secret areas to reward exploration and at the end of obstacles to satiate those hungry for a challenge. Earning more rep than required to progress the story will unlock additional portions of the map with their own set of secrets and challenges, and it's always a good idea to scour the maps after completing the story to do unique quest lines for unlocking characters. These zones are really dense, which is as much a blessing as it is a curse. You are provided a map via your flip phone and the pause screen, but it's not all that helpful until after you have claimed the borough for your crew. Only then will you be able to go back and find the map data. This mechanic incentivizes paying attention to the thoughtful level design and making note of routes along the walls and rails of each zone. But when nothing is marked on your map and you can’t find your way through the twists and turns of zones like Pyramid Island or you happen to miss a gap to slide under, it can lead to frustration.  

The police can be similarly irritating. Once you have thrown up enough pieces around town, the cops are alerted to your location, chasing you down with guns, turrets, snipers, and more. They’re easy to ignore at first, but once you are at max heat you will have an army on your tail, making forward progress miserable. It's in these instances that you’ll want to locate an outhouse to lose the fuzz—and maybe change your fit while you’re at it. You can fight back by boosting and doing tricks into the police if you’d like, but this isn’t a real combat component of gameplay. If anything, it's just an opportunity to break dance into your haters and humiliate them into the air with your sick art for extra points.

Team Reptile understands the vibe it's going for and commits to it completely, and that goes beyond the joys of tagging lawmen just for kicks. Your flip phone isn’t just the way your crew communicates information; it's also your map, your music, and your camera. You change characters and hail taxis not by selecting options on a screen but by busting moves in specific locations. It would be simpler to relegate these options to a menu but clear effort was put into making these details a cohesive part of the world even at the cost of player convenience. And I love Bomb Rush Cyberfunk all the more for it.              

This brings us to the story, which oozes as much personality as everything else—even if the premise isn’t as fresh. Your journey as a cyberhead trying to get his flesh head back and understand his past is the amnesiac trope we’ve seen a million times but with extra steps. However, the execution is what kept me engaged with fun character interactions, striking cutscene direction, and unique gameplay integration. Throughout his journey of self-discovery, Red will be sucked into his subconscious. In this dream state, you as the player need to platform your way through an obstacle course built out of fragmented memories and surreal architecture. They don’t last long but these bite-sized sections are some of the most memorable. Bosses are less so, though. The few that you encounter are fine moments to punctuate the story but outside of a couple exceptions they don’t deliver the same awe or excitement.

We’ve already done a tech analysis and comparison across Switch, PC, and Steam Deck so I won’t reiterate the details. The cliff notes version is that Switch performance is adequate but not amazing. The game runs at stable resolutions and a consistent 30fps with an option to uncap the framerate if you wish. And you can expect pop-in issues and longer loading times. The couple of things I didn’t catch in my earlier testing were the handful of crashes I experienced late in the game. These were alarming at first but the generous auto-save threw me right back into the action without missing a beat. I’d also like to add that the pop-in during some later in-engine cutscenes was far more pronounced than in my initial tests. If you can get Bomb Rush elsewhere, then I’d recommend a version on better hardware but don’t feel like you are shortchanged by picking it up on Switch if you have to.

It’s easy to glance at Bomb Rush Cyberfunk and see a cheap imitation. A work whose value is found in what it takes rather than what it creates. But Team Reptile has proven that  derivative art can surpass its inspirations. I can recall nearly half a dozen instances of me starting Jet Set Radio with the hope that it would finally click, that I could finally enjoy moving in that world as much as I enjoyed being in it, only to never make it past the second level. In a year chock full of landmark releases, I’m booting up Bomb Rush Cyberfunk again to make up for all the lost time, to play the game that I always hoped existed. Now that I have it, I simply just can’t get enough.

[You can finally engage Camilla.]

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TalkBack / Wave 2 of Fire Emblem Engage DLC Drops Today, Waves 3 and 4 Teased

« on: February 08, 2023, 01:37:00 PM »

You can finally engage Camilla.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/62813/wave-2-of-fire-emblem-engage-dlc-drops-today-waves-3-and-4-teased

Revealed in today's Nintendo Direct, Hector from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade, Soren from Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance and Fire Emblem: Radiant Dawn, and Camilla from Fire Emblem: Fates are all joining the cast of legacy characters in Fire Emblem Engage. Players who have purchased the Expansion Pass will be able to play a chapter from their respective games and unlock their abilities as Emblems in the full game.

Waves 3 and 4 were also teased in the direct, showcasing future Emblems Chrom and Robin from Fire Emblem: Awakening as a joint pair and Veronica from Fire Emblem: Heroes arriving in Wave 3. Additionally, new story content dubbed Fell Xenologue coming in Wave 4. No specific dates have been named for Waves 3 or 4.

[Perhaps this will quench your Zelda thirst.]

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TalkBack / Indie Zelda-like Tunic Launches on Switch Later this Month

« on: September 13, 2022, 08:04:00 AM »

Perhaps this will quench your Zelda thirst.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/61521/indie-zelda-like-tunic-launches-on-switch-later-this-month

The breakout indie hit Tunic from solo dev Andrew Shouldice lands ashore on Nintendo Switch on September 27th. Announced at today's Nintendo Direct, this wordless isometric action-adventure game pulls inspiration from classic top-down Zelda games. Players will venture through a ruined land with an in-game manual as their only guide.

[Eight more paths to travel]

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TalkBack / Octopath Traveler II Revealed, Launching February Next Year

« on: September 13, 2022, 07:37:00 AM »

Eight more paths to travel

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/61516/octopath-traveler-ii-revealed-launching-february-next-year

Octopath Traveler, the first in Square Enix's line of HD-2D games, receives a sequel. Announced during today's Nintendo Direct, the newest entry in the throwback JRPG series follows eight new characters in the industrial fantasy world of Solistia. Each character will have different path actions dependent on the time of day. The trailer also highlights the various party member's stories connecting with each other.

Octopath Traveler II is set to release on February 24th, 2023.

[The phantasy is now reality!]

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TalkBack / Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series (Switch) Review

« on: July 15, 2022, 05:58:17 AM »

The phantasy is now reality!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/60976/klonoa-phantasy-reverie-series-switch-review

The mainline Klonoa games have always been held in high regard by enthusiasts and collectors as cult classic platformers—hidden gems of their respective console’s libraries. This is a shame since the Klonoa series has all the ingredients to be a full-fledged franchise: simple but engaging mechanics, a vibrant visual style, an instantly recognizable main character, and stories that sit with you long after the final credit rolls. One would think that Klonoa wouldn’t have just succeeded but soared in the halcyon days of the late nineties and early aughts era of mascot platformers. Unfortunately, despite a number of handheld spin-off titles and a short-lived revival on Wii, Klonoa never found its footing as a financially viable franchise.

Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series is Bandai Namco’s latest attempt to give the Dream Traveler a new lease on life. This package contains remasters of the PlayStation original Klonoa: Door to Phantomile (based on the Wii remake) and the PlayStation 2 sequel Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil. Two incredible games that are absolutely worth the price of admission, even if the shell they come in is a little undercooked.    

Door to Phantomile’s gameplay is a tried-and-true platforming joy. As one of the pioneers in the 2.5D platformer genre, you move left or right on a 2D plane in a 3D environment, jump to clear gaps or overcome obstacles, and use a flutter to help with longer distances and repositioning. The main wrinkle in gameplay is Klonoa’s handy wind bullet that acts as a short-distance grab with many uses, chief of which is to snag baddies and inflate them like balloons above your head. Klonoa can then toss them straight ahead as an attack or boost himself off them for one of the best feeling double jumps in all of video games. It's such a simple idea that is so easy to grasp and yet the superb level design expands on this one mechanic for platforming and puzzle-solving in ways that keep it fresh throughout. Early visions (levels in the Klonoa nomenclature) tend to be straightforward point-A-to-point-B affairs as they guide new players through the base mechanics. It’s the later visions that realize the full potential of both Klonoa’s wind bullet and the 2.5D world. These stages take advantage of the 3D environment by incorporating detours, split routes, and creative backtracking otherwise impossible to portray in a completely flat world. Oftentimes your path will fork into multiple routes or twist into knots around a bend or follow a corkscrew course up a column in ways that, in conjunction with the visuals, roots the environments that Klonoa travels in with a real sense of place. Door to Phantomile is a classic and holds up incredibly well even after two decades.

Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil is one of those rare perfect sequels. It carries over the solid platforming and visual flourish that made Door to Phantomile great and then builds on those concepts with a grander world and a more cinematic presentation. Visions are paced exceptionally well, hitting a sweet spot of length, visual variety, platforming, and puzzles. The first game also had light puzzle elements strewn about the levels but they take a larger focus in the sequel and were the highlight in most levels. My personal favorite vision was the mind-bending Maze of Memories, which places puzzle-platforming challenges front and center and is just one of the many examples of the creative locales that you will visit in Lunatea.  Another highlight are the various hoverboard levels dotted throughout the adventure. Standard Klonoa levels have always been leisurely paced jaunts so the faster reaction-based hoverboard sections are a welcome addition.  

I won’t be digging too deeply into the stories of these games, partially because the plots are so straightforward. The cliff notes summary of both Door to Phantomile and Lunatea’s Veil can be described as globetrotting adventures in fantastical settings where Klonoa and his friends must seek out important people and/or gather McGuffins in an attempt to save the world from malicious forces. The other reason why I won’t divulge further is that both these stories carry something deeper just below the whimsical fairytale surface. All I’ll say is that there are just enough poignant moments that I still think about and that grant both games an unexpected emotional heft. It is hard to choose which narrative was my favorite, but there is a clear step up in presentation in the sequel. Klonoa 2 is very cinematic with much more time and effort spent on worldbuilding, dialogue, and characters making it the more substantial narrative of the two.

But enough about the individual games. How does Phantasy Reverie Series fare as a package? Developer MonkeyCraft has delivered a solid product, albeit an unambitious one. It’s a light touch remaster, more of a refresh than an overhaul. The visual upgrade is true to the spirit of the series, leaning into a style that is bright, cheery and saturated. It’s a pleasant enough looking port but performance is subpar for what is ultimately a Wii and a PS2 game with an HD makeover. Framerate was well above 30fps for the vast majority of my playthrough but there is still an odd jitteriness from the game not quite being able to consistently hit 60fps. And with no way to lock the framerate to 30fps, that slight choppiness was something I had to get used to. There are even steeper drops during cutscenes and some bosses but these were few and far between enough to not bother me. These ports are still absolutely playable and run well enough in both docked and handheld mode, but this is coming from someone who plays primarily on Switch and is willing to sacrifice picture and performance for portability.

Another letdown is the music, both soundtracks have been left unchanged; this is not a huge loss considering they were great to begin with but I can’t help but wish that Bandai Namco shelled out the resources to revamp the music to match the visual upgrade. Beyond that, there are some peripheral changes like expanded tutorials, tweaked translations, and difficulty options. Easy and Normal difficulties are both available at the start with the Hard difficulty unlocking after completing a playthrough. The two main differences in these difficulties are how much health you have per life and how far your wind bullet reaches. Easy is the only difficulty to feature the extended range wind bullet, which feels much better than the shorter reach on Normal and Hard. But Easy mode also has a massive health gauge and infinite lives so it becomes a choice between gutting the difficulty or playing with worse controls. Thankfully you can swap between difficulties whenever you want so I suggest you find the one that feels best to you early on and then stick to that one for the remainder of your playthrough.

It’s apparent that Phantasy Reverie Series was a budget job, but it stays in its lane and delivers two excellent games in one okay package. And yet this so-so port is maybe one of the greatest gaming gifts of the year. Thanks to it, I was able to reconnect with the simple pleasure of Door to Phantomile and also be introduced to the wonder that was Lunatea’s Veil for the very first time. After about eight hours spent across both titles, I’m reminded of how special these games are, in the whole grand pantheon of platforming icons there is still nothing quite like Klonoa. Thoughtful, intricate levels built around simple gratifying mechanics wrapped in a world that is dreamy and whimsical, yet with an undercurrent of melancholy. That’s why I wish Phantasy Reverie Series gave me just a little more or ran a little better. When something beloved has been lost for so long, it’s hard to not cling to any and every bit you can get in fear that it will be torn away from you yet again. Ultimately I’m just thankful for the chance that we have now to wipe the decades-old dust from these hidden gems. Maybe, if only for a moment, not so hidden anymore.

[Klonoa on Switch is Klonoa (but now on Switch)]

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TalkBack / 7 Takeaways from the Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series Demo

« on: June 24, 2022, 10:21:00 AM »

Klonoa on Switch is Klonoa (but now on Switch)

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/preview/60783/7-takeaways-from-the-klonoa-phantasy-reverie-series-demo

After nearly 15 years of lying dormant, Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series reintroduces the classic 2.5D platforming franchise for a new generation, and thanks to a recent Japanese eShop demo, we’ve been granted an early look. Phantasy Reverie Series remasters the Wii remake of the PlayStation original Klonoa: Door to Phantomile and the PlayStation 2 sequel Klonoa 2: Lunatea’s Veil, placing them in one neat, convenient package. After spending some quality time with the three levels available in the demo we’ve pulled seven takeaways that will hopefully shed some light on the upcoming collection.

1. What’s Old is New Again

Personally, I have no previous experience with Lunatea’s Veil, but I can say with confidence that Klonoa: Door to Phantomile plays almost identically to its predecessors. Klonoa’s moveset is the same, the layout of the levels is the same and even the music is the exact same OST from the PS1 and Wii versions. Any difference to the core experience is essentially imperceptible. That’s not a bad thing at all as Klonoa plays just as brilliantly here as he did over a decade ago.  Instead what Phantasy Reverie Series offers is a snazzy new coat of paint and some peripheral features such as redone tutorials, a tweaked localization, and difficulty options.

2. High Definition

The visuals are the star of the show as these remasters are the first time we’ve seen Klonoa in HD. The underlying core is decades-old and there is a budget feeling to the final result; that said the art direction is still strong and the return to a bold colorful saturated look is much more fitting over the greyish dull presentation of the Wii remake. And a special mention should be made for Klonoa’s character model returning to his original design and proportions in Door to Phantomile. Unfortunately, the pendulum occasionally swings too hard in the opposite direction. At times the lighting leans too bright as overexposed highlights and harsh bloom effects become overwhelming. There’s also a pixel filter option that gives the game a lo-fi crunchy look that is little more than a cute novelty. Overall though, Phantasy Reverie Series achieves a pleasant workmanlike upgrade over the original releases.  

3. Targeting 60 FPS

Phantasy Reverie Series runs well on Switch but not without a couple of hitches here and there. From our testing of the first game in docked mode, we have determined that the framerate hovers around 50 frames per second for regular gameplay at times hitting 60 or dipping into the high 40s. Framerate fluctuated the most during cutscenes depending on what was on-screen. There are noticeable frame dips so keep that in mind if you’re sensitive. To my eyes, they did not detract from the experience so your mileage may vary. Of course, this is also a demo of what is likely an earlier build of the game and might not be wholly accurate in portraying the release day experience.  

4. Tips Galore

A lack of tutorials was never a weakness of the original games but Phantasy Reverie Series goes out of its way to spell out gameplay elements and mechanics in detail and makes them easily accessible via the pause menu. This is great for newcomers and younger players going on their first Klonoa adventures but should probably be left off by platforming veterans since the tips might spoil the solution to beating bosses or getting past minor puzzles.

5. Easy, Normal (and probably Hard)

At the outset of the demo for each game, you are presented the option of either choosing the Easy or Normal difficulty. Easy mode increases your max health to five hearts, reduces incoming damage, provides you with infinite lives, and extends the reach of your Wind Bullet (the mechanic that grabs and inflates enemies). Normal mode keeps your health at three hearts, limits you to a finite number of lives, and maintains the reach of your Wind Bullet from the original Playstation releases. Players can freely swap between these difficulties on the fly in the options menu so there's room to play around and find the difficulty that suits you best. Officially released screencaps reveal a third Hard option but this was not available to us in the demo.

6. Co-Op? Not Quite

Technically speaking, Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series qualifies as a co-op game. Though the word ‘technically’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. With a second controller connected, a second player can occasionally press A to give Klonoa a super jump. That’s it. That’s the entire mechanic. This is a holdover from the original release of Klonoa 2 that is now featured in both games (because why not?). The most noteworthy thing about it is just how unnoteworthy it is. However, I was able to pull off what would have been an otherwise impossible jump with it so maybe it will have its very niche use cases.        

7. Klonoa 2 Rereleased for the Very First Time!

Back in 2001, NextGen magazine reported that Namco was planning on porting Klonoa 2, among a number of other titles, from the PlayStation 2 to GameCube. Though this port was never officially announced, the other ports were eventually released leaving many to believe that the GameCube port was started internally and ultimately canceled due to the poor sales of the original game. Despite the remake of Door to Phantomile on Wii and the PSN rereleases of the Playstation original, Klonoa 2 has never seen a release beyond the Playstation 2. In a way, Phantasy Reverie Series fulfills a long-forgotten dream, finally making Lunatea’s Veil officially available after over 20 years to both a Nintendo audience and beyond.

[Who needs a weapon triangle when you have an armor dodecahedron?]

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TalkBack / Dark Deity (Switch) Review

« on: March 20, 2022, 04:00:00 AM »

Who needs a weapon triangle when you have an armor dodecahedron?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/59940/dark-deity-switch-review

Clearly modeled after Fire Emblem games of the Gameboy Advance and GameCube era, Dark Deity is a Strategy RPG that features many of the trimmings fans of the classic Intelligent Systems franchise will be very familiar with. A large cast of playable characters, varied classes with branching promotions, character conversations, and weapon advantages all make an appearance in Dark Deity. The nuances of these systems add up to set Dark Deity apart, at times even surpassing the ideas that inspired them. Unfortunately, a poor UI, uneven presentation and a general lack of polish get in the way of what is otherwise a fascinating new take on old ideas.  

   The story begins with Irving and his fellow military academy classmates Garrick, Maren, and Alden suddenly being recruited into the ongoing war between nations Delia and Aramor. As the story progresses, an even more sinister danger reveals itself pursuing the eternal aspects, items containing godly powers, to achieve a nefarious end. Our merry band of fresh recruits eventually desert the front lines of war to join forces with a cast of war veterans, adventure-seekers, assassins, and would-be enemies to combat this new threat. The plot is pretty standard fantasy-adventure fare. Where the story really shines is in the character writing.

The whole cast of characters are well defined without ever coming off as one-dimensional. The only issue is that as the party grows, so does the length of the story sections between battles to allow for several of the members to weigh in with their thoughts. It's not a problem early on, but once you have a couple dozen characters competing for screen time, it can be a little much. On the other hand, bond conversations, chats between characters that can be read in base, are largely brief and contain some clever writing that outdoes most of modern Fire Emblem’s support conversations.

   Battles follow the strategy RPG genre conventions of commanding a small army on a grid, defeating enemies, leveling up your units, and accomplishing a set objective. Objectives are varied from chapter to chapter and, for the most part, boil down to some flavor of rout enemies, defeat boss, defend for x number of turns, or arrive at a destination. Perhaps more important than objectives is the map design that houses them. In Dark Deity’s case, map design is hit-or-miss. Some maps are inventive with side objectives that encourage splitting up your party for greater efficiency, but too often maps are simply giant arenas for fights to take place, testing your patience rather than your skill.

   Unit progression and customization is where Dark Deity diverts from Fire Emblem’s formula the most. Class options centralize around six base archetypes: warrior, ranger, cleric, mage, rogue, and adept. As units level up they can then be promoted to a choice of four tier-2 classes and eventually four tier-3 classes available within each class tree. These determine your growth stats and passive abilities, as well as armor and weapon types. Similarly, each unit has a set of four unbreakable weapons in which they can invest weapon tokens to upgrade, focusing on either maximizing power, crit, accuracy, or weight. And then there are the eternal aspects, unique items that can alter the capabilities of a unit, such as adding the ability to heal when dodging or increased damage when counterattacking. All these systems, the class selection, weapon upgrades, and eternal aspects add up to make character customization incredibly fine tuned and rewarding to play with. This is perhaps Dark Deity’s smartest mechanic: speccing each unit with their own particular set of class abilities and weapons to either shore up weaknesses or double down on strengths feels great. Personally, some of my favorite builds for units have been a self-healing dodge tank rogue, a mounted crit machine warrior, and a lightning fast ranger that deals increased damage when executing a follow-up attack.

There is a caveat though. The class you choose determines both damage and weapon types for your units, with weapons playing a part in the advantage system. This is Dark Deity’s equivalent to the weapon triangle in Fire Emblem. But instead of the intuitive rock-paper-scissors dynamic of the weapon triangle, the advantage system is much more complex. There are nine types of damage and four types of armor, and they all relate in different ways. For instance, piercing damage has a minor advantage against cloaks and a major advantage against chain armor, however it is weak against plate armor and leather armor. Fire magic is strong against leather and cloaks but weak against plate and chain. Again, there are nine damage types and four armor types, and both types are mixed and matched across the dozens of classes available. Needless to say, it can become very overwhelming very quickly. If anything, Dark Deity’s advantage system behaves more like Pokemon’s typing system than it does the weapon triangle. Thankfully, the game does alert the player about whether a matchup is advantageous or not via up or down arrows marked by each unit when one is selected. However, this little visual tool does not tell the whole story and for most of my playtime I felt I relied too heavily on its guidance instead of thinking through my moves with the mechanic in mind. This is a shame because there is merit in a system this deep. I can’t think of a single damage or armor type that is superior to the rest and all of my units, even the weaker ones, felt useful in the right matchup. I imagine that this system pays off nicely once it clicks; it just might take time, patience, and deliberate practice to get there.

Dark Deity is the debut game of Sword & Axe LLC, a brand new studio staffed by first-time game devs. It is remarkable to see this game get so far in so little time, from a Kickstater launch in 2020 to a Steam release in 2021 and now a Switch port in 2022. You can feel the passion in the intricacies of the systems, character art, the gorgeous pixel animations, and the charming flavor text. Unfortunately, you can also feel that Dark Deity feels like a rough draft rather than a finished product. This is most evident in the UI elements and menus that are poorly laid out, confusing to navigate, and frequently unresponsive. For a genre as menu heavy as Strategy RPGs, it is very unfortunate that this could not have been cleaned up before release. But that’s not all. Tutorials are bizarrely small text windows and some text isn’t formatted properly, especially when displaying non-English languages. I’ve come across a bug where I couldn’t move a unit during a turn multiple times, and loading times between chapters lasted much longer than expected for a game of this scope. Music lacks oomph during battles and the level up sound is more of a whimper than a fanfare. This severe lack of polish does not eclipse the brilliance peaking through but it does dim it.

[What’s the opposite of cream of the crop?]

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TalkBack / Rune Factory 5 (Switch) Review

« on: March 22, 2022, 06:07:00 AM »

What’s the opposite of cream of the crop?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/59986/rune-factory-5-switch-review

Farm-sim games have historically had a hard time maintaining my attention. Though their soothing atmospheres and laid-back pace are nice reprieves in between more intense titles, I find that I bounce off them quickly once I’ve had my fill and something more exciting comes along. So when I had the chance to review Rune Factory 5, the newest entry in the action RPG spin-off of the legendary Story of Seasons franchise (previously known as Harvest Moon in the West), I was eager to see how I’d respond to being a green thumb when I had a sword in hand. Unfortunately, that enthusiasm wilted rather quickly and only began to rot the more I played.   

You play as an amnesiac boy or girl working as a ranger for SEED, an organization that acts as a more formally structured neighborhood watch, in the border town of Rigbarth. You are charged with farming crops, solving local problems, and fighting monsters, at least at first. The story eventually propels your character into a world-saving plot to stop a malevolent force from tampering with the balance of runic power, the life force of this world. This setup is fine, though the amnesiac protagonist trope is eye-rolling at this point and there is a growing disconnect between the main plot of the story and the daily life of Rigbarth as it progresses. My main issue with the story is that the vast majority of it is told within the confines of an office where you and your field captain Livia discuss at length the who, what, where, and why of it all. There is very little variety in the presentation of the story to keep you engaged while also demanding a lot of time as the characters discuss the finer details. I wouldn’t mind a barebones story; likewise, I'd be happy to experience a rich narrative. To have to sit through reading dialog as characters discuss exciting events and ideas while rarely being able to actually witness them is simply a chore.

Speaking of chores, Rune Factory 5 features plenty of them. There are systems upon systems in this game. Farming, socializing,  and adventuring are the building blocks certainly, but you can also capture and tame monsters, harvest ore, chop wood, expand facilities, decorate your room, participate in seasonal events, maximize your crop yield, train up weapon proficiencies, learn recipes, craft items, and of course go fishing. The combination of farm-life sim and action RPG means that there is no shortage of meters to fill, levels to grind, or mins to max. It can be a little overwhelming at first, but the early game tasks doled out by the task board do a nice job of easing the player into the swing of things. Still, there is a lot to keep up with and so much of it is just tedious busywork.

But that’s to be expected with these sorts of games. I’ve played enough Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing to know that the mechanics rarely go deeper than running around town and occasionally pressing A to do a menial task. And there is an appeal to that simplicity, to that deliberately designed monotony. All the little mundane tasks are excuses to routinely escape from our often scary, harsh reality to a friendly, comforting fantasy. Cozy ambience, pleasing aesthetics, relaxing music, likable characters; these are the reasons we play these games. Sadly, this is where Rune Factory 5 fails the most.

There’s no other way around it: Rigbarth is ugly and stiff, and I don’t want to live there. We’re deep enough in the Switch’s lifecycle to know that not all its games are lookers. But Rune Factory’s issues run deeper than graphical fidelity. Objects and buildings are blocky, textures in the environment are muddy, and branches and leaves of trees are flat and lifeless. Even the crops that take up so much of the focus of the gameplay are unappealing. Beyond the border of the town there is some much needed variety in the kinds of locales, but these are often just as unpleasant to look at. What's even more distressing is that despite the uninspired visuals, performance is noticeably rough. The most glaring example is the framerate dips right after loading into a new environment. And beyond that there are pop-in issues with grass and objects on the ground. Companion characters routinely teleport behind you since they can’t keep up even when simply running in a straight line.

The music is decent and fitting for the most part, with one fatal flaw. Most places have one track associated with them and one track only. This isn’t too bad when adventuring in the different biomes that surround Rigbarth, but in Rigbarth itself this is disastrous. Three tracks are essentially all you will hear when in town: one song when indoors, one when outdoors during the day and one when outdoors at night. Since you will spend a significant amount of time in town tending the farm, shopping, crafting and socializing, these tracks become unbearably annoying. Only when you progress from one season to the next does the outdoor daytime track change. This may seem like a minute detail, but I was overjoyed to hear anything different when summer came after hours of hearing the same bouncy accordion in spring. Even then, the indoor track, which has never changed during my playthrough, is almost just as bad.

Models for characters and monsters are nice and detailed enough and stand in stark contrast to the bland world around them. However, the monsters and animals are similarly lifeless. None of them, save for the oddly singular exception of the wolves, make any sounds whether roaming around or in combat. Goblins, fairies, and orcs are mute, the chipmunks do not squeak, the sheep do not bleat, and most bewildering of all for a farm sim, the chickens do not cluck and the cows do not moo. In fact, the creatures seem barely animate, staring blankly as if they walked into a room and forgot what they were looking for as you slaughter their friends mere inches in front of them. The enemies and wildlife in Rune Factory 5 are less inhabitants of a world and more just another resource to be harvested.             

And yet combatting the enemies is the most engaged I ever was throughout my playthrough. The action RPG elements are simple and the battles repetitive, but there is some enjoyment to be had on a surface level. The different types of weapons present options to suit your playstyle and building a party of friends from town or your own tamed monsters has its charm. It's far from being genuinely great, but dodging and managing groups of enemies, especially those that are slightly higher in level can be exciting. I did plenty of that in the game’s many dungeons. Most story missions are punctuated by dangerous treks into woods, caverns, ruins and more. These dungeons are combat-heavy and puzzle-light, so don’t expect anything along the lines of a Zelda-style experience. Still, there are some switches and chests to keep things varied, but the most you’ll be doing is fighting hordes of enemies until you reach a boss at the end of the line. Boss encounters are pretty good on the whole; most can be easily beat when properly leveled, but even when I was under leveled I was able to eek out some hard earned wins that felt satisfying. Towards the end, the dungeons started to overstay their welcome and I was very upset to discover enemies that can one-hit-KO you in the latter parts of the endgame. In general, the story drags too long and I was all too happy to roll credits, but I would be lying if I said I had no fun with several of the early and mid-game dungeons.

Farming and socializing, the other two game play pillars alongside adventuring, are fairly standard. You buy seeds for crops that must be watered everyday and after a set amount of days you reap a yield that can be used for crafting, or more often selling since farming is one of the more lucrative activities in-game. The controls for farming are rather slippery and the auto-lock-on is very touchy. When it works as intended, it's fine but more times than not I had to fight the controls to make them do what I wanted them to. Socializing is maybe a matter of taste. I can imagine an audience that would dig the cast of characters. Although the boiler-plate anime designs are not exceptional, they do a good job in portraying each character’s personality and demeanor. The occasional voice acted moments are a nice touch but personally, none of them clicked. If you are so inclined, there are six bachelors and six bachelorettes that you can pursue romantically. And it's worth noting that all of them are available for courting regardless of gender. I never made it past a couple of dates with Martin, but things didn’t work out. He was married to his work anyways.

When designing a farm-sim there is a line between quiet cozy routine and abject tedium. Rune Factory 5 lands squarely in the latter. The occasionally enjoyable combat cannot make up for the unreliable farming controls, repetitive music, poor performance, ugly visuals, and lifeless world. One or two of these shortcomings could have been forgiven if Rigbarth was a world worth soaking in, but it's simply not. The mountain of issues amounts to Rune Factory 5 being lesser than the sum of its faults and one of the year’s biggest disappointments so far.

[Wahoo!]

9

TalkBack / Klonoa 1 & 2 Compilation Announced for Switch

« on: February 09, 2022, 01:02:00 PM »

Wahoo!

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/59618/klonoa-1-n-2-compilation-announced-for-switch

Announced in today's Nintendo Direct, Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Series brings both the PS1 cult classic and the PS2 sequel to the Nintendo Switch. This announcement marks the return of this iconic 2.5D mascot platformer franchise which has been without an installment since the 2008 Wii remake of Door to Phantomile. Klonoa Phantasy Reverie Seriesis set to release on July 8th, 2022.

[An uber disappointment]

10

TalkBack / Embr (Switch) Review

« on: October 12, 2021, 12:08:24 PM »

An uber disappointment

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/58664/embr-switch-review

Embr imagines a world where you and your fellow independently contracted gig workers (with minimal oversight) are tasked with the job of fighting fires, saving lives, and sometimes delivering meals. The tone and setting of the game could probably be best described as one part wacky cartoon farce and one part biting social commentary of big tech and media corporations. This theming is at the core of how the player engages with the game. The main menu is a cracked tablet, in-game messages pop up as push notifications from Embr, and ads for media and services serve as loading screens. But as dystopian as some of these elements sound, the satire is always tongue-in-cheek. For instance, early on you’re introduced to Hosr, a Canadian competitor to Embr, whose goal is to spread socialism to the United States and turn oil barrel factories into maple syrup factories.

The general goal of most missions is to rescue your clients before the burning building collapses. However, there is no set path; instead, you’re given a set of tools to meet your objectives in any way you see fit. Sure, you could barrel right through the front door and make your way up the stairs normally, or you can prop up a ladder and smash your way in through the window with your trusty axe. This flexibility makes each mission a sort of free-form puzzle about being efficient in getting from point A to point B, which is rarely an easy task. These buildings are full of clutter, obstacles, electrical and gas hazards, and of course fire. What’s more, these hazards can compound into worse problems. Hosing down fire might clear a path for you, but if the room has an exposed electrical wire then you could have made things worse for you as the water conducts the hazardous current throughout the room. No matter what difficulty you choose, your knowledge of the building, your tools, and your efficiency will be tested.

At least at the time of this review, your patience may be tested as well. There is no getting around it, Embr on Switch looks and plays rough. Beyond the very noticeable low resolution, there are a slew of issues that made playing this promising game a disappointment. Pop-in is abysmal, with objects appearing just feet away from you, and some of the visual effects have been downgraded past the point of what’s reasonable. For instance, hacking through doors with your axe on other systems will show damage; on Switch the doors just darken. The worst of it though is the particle effect for fire, which on Switch is an eyesore. Certainly, compromises are expected when porting to weaker hardware, but Embr crosses a line. And even beyond fidelity, these levels are full of repeated assets, bright saturated colors, poor effects, and clutter that make prolonged play a strain to the eyes.

Controls fare even worse, with some of the most frustrating physics and movement I’ve dealt with in a while. Let me try to unpack this. Your character’s movement is relatively quick on solid ground but you can be slowed down to a crawl by different hazards like fire and electricity. That’s all fair and good. The problem is that just about anything else can also slow you down. These houses are cluttered with trash bags, furniture, and other debris that your character can either be slowed or stopped by when you come in contact with them. Over time, this creates continuous friction where the act of simply moving is frustrating. There are tools to either destroy or move objects, but this is a bothersome solution to an unnecessary problem. Struggling against the clock, fire, and other hazards while pursuing main and side objectives is already enough; struggling to move your character is a tedious addition.

Another issue is how movement is detected. At times I would find myself being thrust backward seemingly at random. I couldn’t tell if this was a product of friction against objects or a bug that hadn’t been ironed out yet. After messing around with the controls for a bit I think I may have figured out the issue. Embr has no gradations between being still and a full sprint when reading player inputs on an analog stick. So, inching forward slightly is interpreted to be just as fast as a full tilt. This is also true of moving backwards, which is just as fast as moving forwards. So whenever I tried to adjust my position slightly backward my character would jerk back. To be honest, I’m still not sure if that is entirely the issue at play here; maybe the movement is bugged or maybe I’m experiencing some form of input lag in single-player. Whatever the case may be, the unintended jerking back and forth resulted in irritating play sessions.

   Online play, a major selling point in the game’s marketing, is where Embr’s dim light is allowed to shine a bit brighter. Maneuvering around frustrating physics and rough controls is easier to bear when the goal of completing a mission is shared by multiple players, which may even turn some of the tragedy into comedy. So far I’ve only been able to join sessions with friends with no success in finding public matches in either lobbies or quick play. Whether this is a system matchmaking issue or a simple player population issue is hard to say. The private matches I did play worked well with no connection issues and allowed for more inventive collaborative play that was noticeably better than floundering through some of these levels alone.      

The core gameplay is fertile ground for some great emergent moments in solo or multiplayer, and the game is chock full of content. Each mission has bonus challenges such as meal delivery or demolition, and there are escape missions, boss battles, difficulty options, loadouts, upgradable items, and cosmetics. Even if you only play strictly single-player, Embr has so much to offer were it not hampered by the visual noise, performance and control issues, and truly frustrating physics. In a lot of ways, playing Embr felt like playing a very promising early access game that would be worth waiting for the arrival of a polished 1.0 release. The devs even included an easy feedback system for bugs, framerate, controls, and gameplay issues in the main and pause menus. But I can only review the product in hand, which though built on solid foundation, quickly crumbles down.

[Working title no more.]

11

TalkBack / Triangle Strategy Announces Release Date and Addresses Player Feedback

« on: September 23, 2021, 03:11:00 PM »

Working title no more.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/news/58439/triangle-strategy-announces-release-date-and-addresses-player-feedback

The team behind Square Enix’s Triangle Strategy has officially announced the release date, dropped the working title and revealed changes in today’s Nintendo Direct. These changes were made according to player feedback in the survey that came packaged with February’s demo. These changes and additions include:

 
• Easy and Hard difficulties (along with the standard “Default” difficulty
 
• Improved user interface
 
• Ability to change camera angles
 
• Ability to review previous conversations
 
• Faster loading times

The “HD-2D” turn-based tactics game will release on Nintendo Switch March 4th, 2022.

Nintendo of Europe has announced via Twitter that a special physical edition (dubbed Tactitian's Limited Edition) will release day and date with the game. Beyond the game card, this edition will include a steelbook case, a set of 6 dice, a deck of playing cards, a double sided-poster , and a decorative box.

[Furry Fury]

12

TalkBack / Fuga: Melodies of Steel (Switch) Review

« on: July 29, 2021, 05:38:00 PM »

Furry Fury

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/57931/fuga-melodies-of-steel-switch-review

Who would have thought that in 2021 developer Cyberconnect2 would revisit the world of Tail Concerto and Solatorobo: Red the Hunter? For those out of the loop, Tail Concerto and Solatorobo were colorful 3D action platformers featuring a world inhabited by anthropomorphic cats and dogs that were released on the PS1 and DS respectively. Solatorobo was released in 2010, and outside of a Japan-only mobile game in 2014, there hasn’t been a follow-up since. That all changes with Cyberconnect2’s first venture in self-publishing with Fuga: Melodies of Steel, which trades the 3D action of previous entries for on-rails turn-based RPG combat with base building elements. And yet, maybe the most notable departure is tone.

The opening is downright haunting. In an unmistakable allusion to the Nazi invasion of France, our ragtag group of anthropomorphic puppies and kittens—the oldest of which is 12 and the youngest 4—are robbed of their homes and families in the Gasco countryside by the Berman empire, and are guided by a mysterious voice over the radio to the location of a hulking tank called Taranis. The tutorial begins with the voice instructing the children how to operate the steel behemoth and its weapons as they plow through the Berman military. The nightmare culminates with a boss encounter, where our crew of tweens and toddlers meet their match. Facing certain doom, the mysterious voice suggests the Taranis’ secret weapon: The Soul Cannon. This giant weapon will eliminate the enemy in one shot, however, to use this weapon, one of the children must be sacrificed to power the cannon. Choosing that first child sacrifice was alarming and uncomfortable to make, and though the choice is quickly reversed, it left me determined to never have to resort to such drastic measures again.

But as effective as that opening hour may have been, it quickly became apparent that the horrors of war, child soldiers, and death resulted to be in service to what is essentially a paint-by-numbers save the world story. Our main characters are revealed to be one-note archetypes featuring tropes like the plucky farmer boy lead, the maternal childhood friend, the nerdy type that has trouble speaking with girls, the villain seeking world domination… I could go on.  The darker elements of the story, much like the use of World War II imagery, are more of a tonal backdrop to hang the narrative and gameplay on rather than the earnest exploration of the loss of innocence or the traumatic effects of war on children that I was expecting given the premise. Much of the narrative is comprised of the children making new friends, learning to work together, and bonding as a crew. These moments can be genuinely cute, and I imagine there is an audience that will appreciate the juxtaposition of childlike innocence and wartime peril. That’s not to say that the writing never attempts to touch on heavier material, just that it ends up coming off as toothless when taken all together. In other words, the story’s bark is worse than its bite.

The core gameplay remains solid throughout, however. Fuga is structured into about a dozen chapters, with each chapter playing out with your tank slowly making its way from left to right along a dotted path. Each dot indicates an event or item, most of these are combat encounters but some are pickups to refill your pools of health and skill points or materials for upgrades, and others are intermissions where the fighting takes a backseat and you’re allowed to manage the characters and base building. As you progress, chapters will include forks in the paths, and it will be up to the player to choose between either the safer paths with less combat and more HP and SP refills or to brave the more dangerous paths for the boosted experience points and material rewards to upgrade the Taranis’ many weapons and facilities. The difficulty curves for these paths feel just right. I never felt consistently capable to handle the dangerous paths and neither did it feel prudent to only ride the safe paths either since both experience points and weapons and armor upgrades were so valuable.

Combat plays out in turn-based battles with speed-based turn orders. Knowing when your opponent is about to strike is important since enemies hit really hard, but can be staggered if they are hit by the right weapon type denoted. The Taranis is equipped with three battle stations that can be armed with either a machine gun, grenade launcher, or cannon. Each child in your party is tied to one of those weapon types which all have their own traits and roles. Machine guns are the weakest but most accurate and typically carry skills that can puncture enemy armor, cannons hit like a truck but have difficulty with precision, and grenade launchers land somewhere in the middle of damage and hit rate while also specializing in inflicting status ailments. Those descriptions hold mostly true across the board, but each child plays a little differently. For instance, Socks and Hanna wield grenade launchers but Socks focuses on having a wide array of status ailments that he can inflict, while Hanna trades offensive capabilities for some of the best healing in the game.

Each combat encounter is ranked with a letter grade based on turn count, damage taken, and technique with higher ranks netting you more XP and better item drops. This incentivizes highly efficient playstyles over simple brute force. When played well, each combat is a puzzle that challenges the player to maximize skills, weapon types, character synergies, and good old-fashioned RNG to stagger, weaken and dispatch the Berman forces. Combat becomes especially satisfying in the midgame as more useful skills and capabilities are doled out, but towards the endgame, battles became more rote as I became perhaps became too capable, and as chapters dragged on a good deal longer than I would have preferred.

Base building is the low point of the game, unfortunately. During specified points, the crew will take an intermission where the children can farm, cook, fish for scrap, conduct upgrades and build affinity with each other through conversations. I get the sense that this was supposed to be the heart and soul of Fuga, a place of refuge away from the violence. And yet I groaned anytime an intermission cropped up. These moments are incredibly valuable since they cannot be repeated and there are only a finite number of them, given the game’s linearity, so if you want the best outcomes, you’ll be sure to do everything possible to get the most of your limited Action Points that determine how many activities you can do in an intermission. But the vast majority of activities amount to running around the tank, selecting from a menu, and checking off a list. As I played these sections, I was too often reminded of the monastery from Fire Emblem: Three Houses which was filled with the identical tedium of doing chores that could not be ignored or sped through if you wanted the best results in combat.

I’m torn on Fuga: Melodies of Steel. There is more that I like than dislike; combat is satisfying, the graphical style is appealing, the music ranges from good to phenomenal and the story, as cliché as it may be, is told well enough. And yet I still can’t shake the feeling that Fuga could have been so much more if it cut back on the boring base building and truly committed to a tone that the premise deserves. If a solid linear RPG that can be beaten in under 20 hours is something you’re in the market for or if you’re curious about the successor to Solatorobo then Fuga is at least worth a look. But if your interest was piqued by the trailer or heard the premise of children, war, and permadeath; then you should know there is a lot less here than you may have initially thought.

[This old war dog could learn some new tricks.]

13

TalkBack / Commandos 2 HD Remaster

« on: February 01, 2021, 11:42:14 AM »

This old war dog could learn some new tricks.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/56132/commandos-2-hd-remaster

The stealth focused real-time tactics games of PC have experienced a bit of a comeback in recent years, with developer Mimimi Games’ Desperados III making a big splash at the tail end of 2020. I absolutely loved Desperados III, as well as Mimimi’s previous outing in the genre: Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun. So when I learned Commandos 2—one of the most influential titles in this subgenre—was being remastered by Yippee Entertainment! and being ported to Switch, I knew I had to try it. Unfortunately, outdated design, poor controls, and poor quality of life features sabotage this PC classic.

The premise of Commandos 2 is simple: you play as a small set of uniquely skilled Allied commandos infiltrating bases and thwarting Nazis. As a real-time tactics game, most of the experience revolves around creatively problem-solving enemy dense zones by carefully dispatching unlucky soldiers while avoiding detection from their ever-present view-cones. Each of your characters specializes in a certain niche. For instance, the Sapper is a British demolitions expert detecting enemy mines and deploying mines of his own; the Green Beret is your typical All-American muscle who can dish as much damage as he can take; the Thief is fast, agile, and limber, with tools up his sleeve to get in and out of places undetected. As the game progresses, you’ll be introduced to more and more characters that will expand your options for completing each objective.  

Objectives are detailed in the intro to each mission and displayed in the pause menu, and yet I found it difficult to keep track of them. Levels are designed pretty openly, leaving the angle of approach in the hands of the player. Some may prefer this, but I enjoyed the tailored maps of the Mimimi-developed titles since they naturally guided me towards the main objectives. I regularly found myself blindly crawling around and knocking out Nazis around the map without the assurance that I was on the right track.

Though guns, bombs, and knives are weapons in your toolkit, the scenarios play more like puzzles than shooting galleries. These puzzles can be head-scratchers leading to many deaths and thus many failures. In fact, much of Commandos 2 is an exercise in trial and error. This is by design and it is mitigated by easy quicksaving at the push of a button.

Alas, if only the loading were as convenient. It’s easy enough to load a quicksave, but it’s nowhere near as fast as it should be. Loading takes about five or more (typically more) seconds to throw you back in the action, which severely slows down the pacing and makes the more difficult sections a headache-inducing slog. For comparison, both Desperados III and Shadow Tactics loading times are nearly immediate,avoiding this problem. My guess is that the Switch’s hardware is just not powerful enough to load in as fast.

Speaking of hardware woes, the controls just feel off on a traditional controller. Obviously, the original game was built around mouse and keyboard with RTS-style controls built around hotkeys, cursors, and clicking. The Switch port makes a commendable effort of translating the controls to a gamepad which, among other changes, replaces clicking to move with the left thumbstick directly controlling the characters. It’s a compromise that functionally works, but isn’t optimal.

As much as it pains me to say, Commandos 2 is not the game I was hoping for. Perhaps I’ve been spoiled by modern games that built upon this predecessor, perhaps it was the clunky translation to console, or perhaps it was simply my impatience with the frequent loading times. Whatever the reason, this legend of the genre fell well below my expectations. If you are a fan of the original game, then by all accounts this remaster does wonders for the visuals and would probably be an easy recommendation. In this case, do yourself at least the favor of avoiding it on Switch.

[Can this board game survive natural selection?]

14

TalkBack / Evolution Board Game (Switch) Review

« on: December 20, 2020, 06:50:00 AM »

Can this board game survive natural selection?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/55839/evolution-board-game-switch-review

Evolution Board Game joins the likes of Catan and Carcassonne as another digital board game to make the leap to Switch eShop. While there is a case to be made that the lack of physical elements and human presence robs these experiences of their real-world coziness, Evolution makes a case for its digital incarnation by pairing excellent game design with modes, content, and features. Unfortunately, it also comes with its share of performance issues—at least on Switch.

   As the name implies, Evolution is about competing for resources, adaptation, and survival. You (and up to three other players) control a species congregating at a watering hole that produces plant food. Each species takes turns eating plant food to support its population. The more populous your species, the more food they can eat, with the accumulated food and population being key in gaining the highest score and winning the match. If a species fails to eat, they lose one population; losing all population results in that species going extinct and having to start over with a new species. Cards are played to either increase population, increase body size for attack and defense, create more species, or be added as traits to your already existing species. These traits typically fall into the category of increasing your efficiency in eating, defending from predators, or speccing into a carnivore to become a predator yourself.

If that all sounds like a lot to digest, you’re not wrong. It took me a couple of hours playing before finally wrapping my head around the rules, and that early learning period was rough. I spent a lot of time reading card descriptions, fumbling with combinations, and shamefully losing against the easiest AI. However, once the rules and systems finally clicked, I discovered just how deep and engaging the systems in Evolution can be.

Evolution is, above all else, precisely balanced. The game presents itself in a fashion similar to other digital card games like Hearthstone or Legends of Runeterra, but instead of being a deck-building game with players pulling from personal collections, Evolution has everyone pulling from the same set deck each match (though decks can change from match to match). This levels the playing field and creates a consistency with which cards appear, and the cards that do appear are never overpowered or useless.

The best part of this system is how it rewards flexibility and mindful adaptation to new scenarios. Creating several species may be good for eating the most food, but typically leaves you susceptible to droughts and carnivores, on the other hand, opponents tend to get wise when you rely on carnivore tactics and bulk up their defenses, which could lead to your species going extinct from starvation. Even with the luck of the draw being a factor (as it is with most card games), Evolution always rewarded mindfulness and skill. As resources and opponents change, so must your strategy.

   Making the most of its digital packaging, Evolution presents the player with loads of options. There is a campaign, offline AI quickplay, weekly challenges, leaderboards, unlockables, and multiplayer in three different forms: local pass and play, online public matches, and online asynchronous matches. The standout here is the campaign which helps players get over the difficulty curve and prepares them to learn the cards and strategies that will be found in the more intimidating online matches. The mode itself is not much more than a world map with levels that must be completed in a linear fashion dotted with bosses throughout, but it works well enough.

A noteworthy element of the campaign is the use of AI; beyond the typical easy, normal, and hard, AI will follow a designated behavior depending on their personality. For instance, the Minimus Rex personality plays to survive even in low food conditions, the Glutto Vastus, on the contrary, emphasizes eating as much as possible while the Defensa Grandis will spec into protective traits to counter offense. These personalities give each AI encounter a fun wrinkle as you consider your decisions with their strengths and weaknesses in mind.

The game itself is excellent, but the software application it comes in, however, is not. At least on Switch, Evolution is sluggish and sloppy. I’ve lost progress in the campaign when I left a mission and returned to it only to find I was punished several levels back. Transitions between menus and matches lack fluidity; at times AI opponents will be playing swimmingly and then the next they’ll stall before playing their turn. Controls are unreliable when using the Intelligence trait, and I’ve repeatedly had to use touch controls to get myself out of moments where buttons and d-pads seemingly decided not to work. Needless to say, this port needs work. Out of curiosity, I tried my hand at a single match on the iOS version on my iPhone 7, and though some sluggishness in the menus remained, the overall experience within the matches was much smoother and snappier.    

   Once I got over the initial hump and learned its systems, Evolution genuinely surprised me with its depth of strategy and breadth of content. The Switch version leaves a lot to be desired in terms of performance, and for now, despite my usual misgivings of the platform, I’d honestly recommend the mobile version. But if Evolution wants to survive on Switch in the wilds of the eShop, it would be wise to take a queue from nature and find a way to adapt.

[A beautiful disaster.]

15

TalkBack / YesterMorrow (Switch) Review

« on: November 10, 2020, 12:32:52 PM »

A beautiful disaster.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/55475/yestermorrow-switch-review

Your once peaceful home of Forest Island is in shambles after the invasion of evil extra-dimensional shadows; and with the looming threat of these shadows summoning even more terrible horrors, the fate of the rest of the continent hangs in the balance. Thus begins YesterMorrow; you play as Yuri, a young woman who bounces between her child timeline and adult timeline to save her family, the divine guardians, and the world itself. If the story sounds ho-hum, that’s because it is. It’s your typical light versus dark, save-the-world fare. But really the story takes a back seat to the gameplay. This adventure plays out as a gorgeous 2D pixel art platformer that incorporates both puzzle and action elements, mixing the two in ways that keep both styles of play fresh. Unfortunately, YesterMorrow is plagued by its own shadows in the form of ugly, annoying, and even game-breaking bugs that infest the game from start to finish.

Zelda fans will likely notice that the time hopping premise has hints of Ocarina of Time, but the way this mechanic plays out is more akin to the alternating worlds of Hyrule and the Dark World in A Link to the Past (or Lorule in A Link Between Worlds). Similar to those titles, when Yuri jumps in time, the location remains the same, but the layout of said location will be different, allowing the player to progress through an area depending on which Yuri is needed for the task ahead. Though Yuri’s physical form changes from a diminutive child to a young adult, her skills remain identical across timelines. The major changes between these timelines comes in the form of the world; young Yuri’s world is mostly peaceful, focusing more on puzzles, while adult Yuri’s world is much more treacherous and action packed. This back and forth between both Yuris and both styles of platforming is at the center of the gameplay.

Dungeons are another apt Zelda comparison. YesterMorrow’s main platform challenges come in the form of different Temples that gradually increase in challenge and complexity and culminate in a boss fight. Upon beating these bosses, the player is rewarded with an item that expands max HP as well as a new ability to add to Yuri’s toolset, such as bombs, double jumping, and dashing. I have to add here that at least two of these boss fights incorporate an action-platforming obstacle course design that transforms the bog standard platforming boss into something exceptionally exciting, frantic, and blood pumping. These two encounters demand mastery over Yuri’s movement and abilities, and are without a doubt the high point of my playthrough. Unfortunately, these highs can’t save YesterMorrow from its long list of lows.   There is no getting around it: YesterMorrow is filled to the brim with technical problems and shortcomings. Early on in my playthrough, nasty glitches of flashing lights and artifacting cropped up, obstructing my gameplay—not to mention also inflicting real discomfort on my eyes. Later I came across physics issues with my abilities: at one point my bombs defied gravity, flying up into the air instead of following their usual arc. This bug came in handy when fighting a particular boss that had missing—or nonexistent?—sound effects for his attacks. I even experienced the game crashing twice, booting me out to the console’s home menu; this is the first time this has ever happened to me since purchasing my Switch. An update did release during my second day of playing which took care of the ugly visual glitches, but didn’t save the game from a myriad of other bugs which culminated in a softlock that stopped my playthrough dead in its tracks. I could easily fill the rest of this review simply chronicling all the bugs, glitches, errors, and other technical hiccups that I experienced. Suffice to say, YesterMorrow is only playable in the loosest sense of the word.

But I would be remiss not to call attention to the framerate dips. I’m unsure if this is a problem with the base game or the Switch port, but YesterMorrow will chug at times when onscreen activity is high. This is immersion-breaking at best, and rage-inducing at worst. There were moments I would be making my way through dungeons that demanded precise platforming, only to be derailed by frequent framerate drops.

These issues ruined my enjoyment of YesterMorrow as a whole, which is sad because there is a solid platformer underneath all the bugs. The controls are excellent (when the framerate allows); it’s a joy to roll, dash, and double jump, in particular.The pixel art is gorgeous, from the traditional garb of villagers, to the intricately crafted towns and the ominous abstract ruins; everything pops. This is high praise as the pixel-art-indie-darling-platformer subgenre is congested to the point of becoming its own cliche, but the devs at Bitmap Galaxy have what it takes to stand out. Unfortunately, their skill has been seriously overshadowed by the game’s technical performance, but also by something else.

Though everything I said above is true, YesterMorrow left me with a uniquely hollow feeling even from the beginning. For instance, the starting music incorporates elegant flutes and weeping strings that are wistfully melancholic; however, this conflicts with the point in the story when kids are playing tag and hide-and-seek while the adults prepare a festival. It’s musically beautiful, but tonally discordant within that point of the story, and this issue appears again and again at various other points. Beyond that, most characters, though elegantly rendered, are little more than static signposts, pointing you to your next task. I once came across a child in a cave hiding from the shadows that captured his family, but once I had rescued his family and saved his town, he remained in the exact same spot delivering the exact same fearful dialog. Add onto this a lack of voice acting or even just basic speech sound effects, and you’re left with beautiful husks rather than true characters. The world is full of color, but devoid of life.

The gameplay also has its own share of shortcomings beyond my technical gripes. Between dungeons, I’d often feel lost without any reassurance from the game that I was going in the right direction.There is a map for which you can collect pieces to fill in, but it’s practically useless and serves mostly as eye candy. It doesn’t show you the way you need to go or give valuable information about your location. Plus, the disastrous technical condition of YesterMorrow made me lose confidence in the game’s basic design. More than once I found myself lost or stumped on a puzzle, unsure if it was a glitch or my own ignorance holding me back.  

Typically, I try to think of who would want to play this game, even if it wasn’t one that I particularly liked. What audience would this appeal to? Is there a special use case or niche that this game fills? Honestly, I don’t have an answer to these questions. YesterMorrow could have been a real solid platformer, but it was released far too soon; more work is needed to bring it up to a point where it can be enjoyed. There are moments where YesterMorrow’s tight controls, level design, and artstyle all come together and shine. Unfortunately, the mountain of technical issues and the empty world eclipse any hints of excellence. At the end of the day, YesterMorrow is an incomplete, broken game, and broken games are neither for yesterday or tomorrow.

[Can this math puzzler amount to more than the sum of its parts?]

16

TalkBack / TENS! (Switch) Review

« on: November 05, 2020, 04:00:00 AM »

Can this math puzzler amount to more than the sum of its parts?

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/55430/tens-switch-review

Taking inspiration from both sudoku and block-dropping puzzles like Tetris, the goal of TENS! is to line up dice in such a way that the sum of either the rows or columns is ten. Once you succeed, the dice clear away and add to your score, making way for more dice to be added; if the board becomes so congested that you can no longer make any moves, then you fail and can try again. The game revolves around making the most out of the dice you are given and playing around any obstacles on the board, going for either easy tens or opting for higher scoring combos. It’s a simple, yet engrossing design that feels right at home on the Switch.

There is a pleasant tactile element to the feedback of TENS! that elevates the experience of playing. Scrolling through tiles elicits a soft clicking sound, placing a die has a satisfying snap and completing a line makes great use of the Switch’s HD rumble. The best way to put it might be that it’s like playing with bubble wrap; it has that same snappy gratifying feeling. This is complemented by a colorful UI, and a soothing soundtrack. Admittedly, there are only a handful of tracks that end up on repeat throughout, but they’re a gentle and calming presence that sits nicely in the background so they never became grating to listen to over and over again.

Players can choose between three modes: an adventure mode, an endless mode, and multiplayer. Adventure is a campaign featuring ten worlds with five solo puzzles and two boss encounters each. There is a gentle difficulty curve as these puzzles slowly demand more from the player in terms of both score and skill. At the start, levels are simple no-frills puzzles; but as the adventure goes on levels begin introducing special tiles that add a layer of challenge. For instance, some tiles are blocked and must be played around, others may be burner tiles that destroy dice, but my favorite are the re-roll tiles that add a bit of RNG by rerolling dice for a different number that may help—or hinder—the player’s progress.

The bosses in adventure mode will feel familiar to fans of similar competitive puzzle modes. These encounters are head to head matches where each line completed by one player may inhibit the other by producing blocker tiles. These feel especially different from the rest of the levels by changing the typical slow methodical pace to a much more frantic one that demands fast thinking to stay ahead of the AI competitors. Some of these bosses were my favorite parts of TENS!. I’d even routinely come back to play one after beating the campaign whenever I had enough of the vanilla experience in endless mode.

Endless mode is exactly what it is said to be on the tin. Much like standard Tetris, endless mode is a game of TENS! that only ends when the player fails. But without the ramping intensity of Tetris or the special tiles from the campaign; the likelihood of a game over is rather low. That’s not to say Endless mode does not have its place; just that it’s better suited for those looking to zone out and decompress rather than anyone looking for a challenge.

Multiplayer is exactly like the boss encounters of adventure mode but player versus player. There is no option to play against AI which is odd, but since bosses from adventure mode can be replayed, that is not much of an issue. What might be a real issue is the lack of online multiplayer. If that is something that is important to you then look elsewhere; I know that for me puzzle games are more of a solo experience, so it did not bother me much. Multiplayer is still plenty fun, in the same way that the bosses are fun, even more so since it’s with another person.

The one sticking-point that keeps TENS! from being a standout is that it just doesn’t have much to offer once the adventure is done; especially when considering contemporaries in the eShop that are more ambitious or offer more reasons to stay invested. Bigger may not always be better, but TENS! struggles to completely justify its value amongst the competition.

TENS! is like a piece of bubble gum; it’s colorful and even delightful in the moment but loses its flavor too soon. That doesn’t negate the fun I did have though. I really enjoyed my time with TENS! as a casual palette cleanser between bigger releases, and it’s convenient to be able to quickly pull it up on my Switch whenever I feel the itch to play a puzzle or two. It’s not hard in the slightest, though the later puzzles in the campaign may have tripped me up a couple of times; I never felt like I was hitting a wall. Instead TENS! delivers relaxing puzzle gameplay that is just engaging enough to have your attention without ever pushing you to the point of frustration.

[Rough play is the name of the game.]

17

TalkBack / HyperBrawl Tournament (Switch) Review

« on: October 31, 2020, 10:38:02 AM »

Rough play is the name of the game.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/55375/hyperbrawl-tournament-switch-review

HyperBrawl Tournament is as simple as sports games come: your team must throw a ball into a goal and stop the opposing team from doing the same. Only issue? This ball game is also a fist fight.

Each match has you knocking out opponents with punches and kicks, wielding items on cooldown like hammers, bombs, and swords to defend or gain an opening to score. Once a player is knocked out, they are out of the game for a few short seconds and then respawn near their goal. Matches play out in a series of rounds, typically lasting 90 seconds, in which teams of two must score the most points to win the round; whoever wins the most rounds wins the match.

The short length of the rounds paired with the aggressive brawler gameplay and small arena-like stages create a very tense environment for every match. Because the stages are packed so tight, goals are easy to reach and points rack up quickly; it only takes a clever juke or a critical knockout to score that next goal, so each match feels like a tug-o-war. Even if one team takes a sizable lead in one round, the scoreboard resets for the following round, leveling the playing field so no one can get too comfortable. This ingenious design leads to several white-knuckle moments that make each match exhilarating to play.

The colorful cast of characters and a clean aesthetic complement the gameplay. Each character feels like they jumped out of a comic book panel or an action figure in the toy aisle. None of them are particularly memorable, but they enhance the game just by being so cartoonish and varied. Each character is also different in gameplay, typically landing somewhere on a spectrum between weak, frail, and quick to strong, tanky, and slow. The speedier characters are great at weaving through the stage and scoring quick goals, while the bulkier ones typically score best simply by punching any obstacles out of their way. A major strategy then is in how you compose your team: Do you want a dynamic duo of both speed and strength? Or, would you rather min-max in one sort of playstyle? Or maybe you want a balanced approach with two well-rounded characters? Though it was easy for me to find my preferred team, the characters are well balanced enough that no pairing feels particularly overpowered or particularly weak.

Each character can be given an item to wield on a cooldown. These range from offensive attacks for quick and easy knockouts to more supportive options like a barrier to block shots on goal. Players also have the ability to tap into the HyperForce, a charged up status that makes players faster and exceptionally stronger. Both the items and the HyperForce may feel overpowered to newcomers, but there are ways to play around these variables.

You’re presented with nine characters at first, but as you progress and level up you will unlock a few more. In fact, progression is a crucial part of HyperBrawl’s gameplay loop. Taking a queue from modern competitive games like Overwatch, as you work through the campaign, compete online or complete objectives, you will accumulate credits to purchase cosmetics and experience points for level ups, which unlock characters and reward you with loot boxes. These loot boxes, called Artifacts in-game, randomly reward skins, victory poses, and other cosmetics. As of this review, Artifacts are not monetized and are attained via natural game progression or spending the in-game credits; some skins, though, are paid-only through optional DLC.

That said, it’s hard to get too invested because there is no story to speak of and the characters, as colorful as they are, never really talk or express themselves. Sure, character bios give the player a loose idea of who these people are and the occasional flavor text might provide context for why HyperBrawl exists, but it’s all rather barebones. The campaign itself is really just a season of HyperBrawl and a tournament, so it’s more a series of matches than it is a true single-player story.

Thankfully, there is multiplayer. You can play up to four players locally or online and participate in 1v1 matches online in Blitz mode. If you want to just play against AI, the three difficulty settings are really well tuned despite the few options. The online is pretty reliable within the match; however, there are some rather glaring framerate dips before and after each game when viewing the character models. I’ve also experienced freezing after online matches that forced me to reset, but thankfully this has never impacted performance while playing either docked with ethernet or wireless in handheld mode.

What is actually a problem is the lack of options for matches. Whether online or off, each match plays with the same 90 second round, best of three ruleset. There is no way to change this ruleset, turn items off, or remove the HyperForce. This is especially frustrating because two different rulesets are in play in the campaign, but access to those is not available outside of said campaign. This would be understandable for the online Blitz mode where quick matchmaking is important, but to see no options in online private matches or the offline Arcade mode is disappointing.

HyperBrawl’s beat-’em-up-meets-sports gameplay is frantic fun that leads to tense matches and clutch moments. The progression means that you have things to work toward if enticed, but the lack of story and multiplayer options may limit your willingness to get too invested. Still, developer Milkytea has something special here in the core gameplay for those that are interested; that interest just may be short lived.

[A decent space sim soured by long missions and repetitive gameplay.]

18

TalkBack / Space Crew (Switch) Review

« on: October 22, 2020, 09:33:49 AM »

A decent space sim soured by long missions and repetitive gameplay.

http://www.nintendoworldreport.com/review/55260/space-crew-switch-review

Earth is being attacked by an evil alien race known as Phasmids, and it is your job as the crew of a United Defense Force ship to fight back and eliminate the alien threat. This is about as much story the player receives in this follow up to developer Runner Duck’s freshman outing, Bomber Crew. As the second game in the Crew series, Space Crew offers vessel maintenance and strategy simulation akin to Faster Than Light. But unlike Faster Than Light’s emphasis on roguelike elements and choose-your-own-adventure style game progression, Space Crew puts all of its focus on combat encounters. Unfortunately, all of these play out so similarly and are dealt with in such a similar fashion that once you figure out how the game works, Space Crew devolves from spaceship battle strategy to spaceship battle maintenance.    

Despite the choice of different mission types—be it escorting a freighter, dropping a probe, rescuing an astronomer or clearing out enemy Phasmids—each mission invariably plays out nearly identically. You pilot your shuttle, hyper-jumping from zone to zone until you reach your destination, complete your mission’s objective, and then jump back retracing your steps back to the UDF’s space station hub. Most zones you jump to are arenas for battles between your ship and dozens of enemy fighters. This is the meat of the gameplay.

These battles are initially exciting as you learn the roles of each of your customizable crew members. Having your engineer transfer power from engines to weapons as your captain steers wildly with his evasive piloting ability so your weapons officers can unload as much damage as possible while avoiding incoming fire is exhilarating, at first anyways. So is ordering your security officer to grab a phase rifle to eliminate a Phasmid boarding crew and cleaning up the aftermath of the wreckage with your engineer as the battle continues raging on just outside the safety of the quickly depleting shields. However, once you know the solution to each problem the game throws at you, tactical decisions fade into rote routines that are never truly challenged or strayed from.

And perhaps even that could be forgiven. The gameplay, though repetitive, is engaging in short bursts. Going through the combat routine is almost meditative; playing it while having a podcast or a show in the background is a fine way to relax and unwind if that is something you are looking for. That said, the missions themselves can drag—playing through one can mean up to twenty minutes or more of nearly uninterrupted combat—and once you string basically indistinguishable experiences along for 6-10 hours, you begin to space out.

It's worth noting that if a crewmember does end up fainting without being revived, then they die permanently. However, permadeath is not much of a threat when you can easily exit out of the game and start the mission over again, and if you do lose them for good the game will produce a replacement at the hub, albeit with lower stats. Yet once you know how to handle each situation, a dying crewmember will rarely ever happen, let alone be an issue.

Thankfully, the character and ship customization between missions does help break up their monotony a bit. At the Athena Station hub, you can deck out your crew with different gear, customize their appearance, and assign secondary roles once unlocked. Similarly, the ship may also receive upgrades to weapons, engines and systems paid for by credits accrued from both story and side missions. You’re presented with many viable options and it feels good to customize according to your playstyle and then immediately feel the difference once you set back out for another expedition.

The presentation and Phasmid champions are two other positives. The chibi characters and faux-Star Trek aesthetic never astonishes but always pleases. There is a charm to the simple colorful look and feel of the world; this is especially true of the Phasmids. Periodically, a Phasmid champion will show up with a horde of starfighters to put a stop to your campaign and taunt you while doing so. Some are typical arrogant bullies, and others are sadists looking to torture you, but the worst has to be Valadu Appakutt, a particularly annoying champion that relentlessly torments you with pop culture references. Although these named alien characters’ barks are much worse than their bites, they provide just the right amount of Saturday-morning-cartoon villainy to make defeating them that much more satisfying.

Ultimately Space Crew does have some notable moments and gameplay ideas, and it’s astounding that Runner Duck, a very small team, developed a game of this scale. But the core gameplay loop loses its luster far too quickly and drags on for far too long to give a full throated recommendation. That’s not to say this game doesn’t have its place; if you’re interested in space sims, but the complexity or difficulty of other games in the genre has put you off, then Space Crew may be for you. If you’re a vet of the genre looking for another dazzling adventure, though, then stay far, far away.