John is joined by Willem Hilhorst fresh off his trip to Gamescom 2024. Willem shares a bit about his work in games preservation and a brief summary of Gamescom as a convention, before diving into everything he did while he was there. As a special treat this episode is also available in video form on our Youtube.
Legendary developer Argonaut Games is making a surprise return after twenty years. The studio has today officially announced their first project as a remaster of their classic 3D platformer, Croc: Legend of Gobbos.
No platforms have been announced thus far beyond a blanket PC and consoles.
Argonaut is perhaps best known by Nintendo fans as the developers behind the Original Star Fox who would go on to work with Nintendo on both Star Fox 2 and Stunt Race FX. The studio was responsible for many early advances in 3D gaming including Starglider on Atari ST and Amiga, along with X on the Game Boy. Croc itself is generally viewed as one of the earliest conceived instances of a 3D platformer, having started life as a pitch for a 3D Yoshi game to Nintendo.
You can learn more about some of Argonaut's early work in our documentary on the making of Star Fox for the Super Nintendo.
Gundam Breaker 4, technically the fifth Gundam Breaker game, is the first title in the series to come to a Nintendo system. In fact it's only the second title to not be exclusive to Playstation platforms, and to release in the west. So it's safe to say that for many, this will be their first introduction to this series. Gundam Breaker is a bit different from other Gundam games as it is built around the concept of Gundam model kits otherwise known as Gunpla. It is a game about collecting parts and kitbashing them together to make new mobile suits and then engage in arena combat. At a glance it isn’t far off from Nintendo’s own seemingly retired Custom Robo series. It is certainly closer to something like that than it is to other more traditional Gundam video games.
The entirety of Gundam Breaker 4 takes place within a somewhat fake MMORPG. I say “somewhat” because it can indeed be played online, allowing you to engage with other players, but the core storyline feels focused as a single player experience. Unlike previous entries there is no segment of the game that takes place in the “real” world. Your Gunpla are your avatars and which can result in occasionally comical moments of your conceptually giant robots acting out heartfelt scenes between two characters.
The story plays out as a linear series of missions, bookended by cutscenes between yourself and the other characters you meet within this virtual world. Most of the actual story takes place in the lobby that you’ll be sent to between missions. As a result the story scenes will get extremely repetitive, with most of them taking place in the exact same spot with voice acting playing over canned animations for your Gunpla. I found it difficult to connect with the story despite the voice cast doing a perfectly fine job.
The actual missions play out in wave-based arena combat. You and your party members will drop into an arena and take on several waves of enemies before moving to the next arena and doing it again. At the end of the waves you’ll generally fight some slightly more powerful enemies or a large boss. Now and then you’ll have a slightly different objective such as defending a certain unit but ultimately most missions wind up feeling very similar. You’ll fight a huge variety of enemies, but as they ultimately all have the same underlying moveset, no one encounter feels particularly different from any other. The exception to this is the large boss fights. These all have unique attacks and phases that have to be learned, and they’re the one instance in which I actually ever died. Getting hit by one of these bosses can occasionally just one shot you, especially if you’re running with a lower level build than you should. These encounters require you to more carefully watch your opponent rather than simply button mash, and find openings to attack weak points when they present themselves. I ultimately enjoyed the boss fights far more than any of the standard encounters which almost never presented any challenge or interesting gameplay.
By far the highlight of Gundam Breaker 4 is the actual mech customization. As you play through missions, enemies will drop parts that you’ll collect at the end of the stage. You can then freely swap these out on your Gunpla. Pieces are split into head, torso, left and right arms, legs, backpack, and both ranged and melee weapons for each hand. Each of these can then be scaled, moved, and rotated. You can individually adjust the paint color and type on various parts of each piece as well as applying custom decals pretty much wherever you want. I even realized you can give these decals emissive properties allowing them to function as lights. Finally you can also adjust various options for wear and tear to make your mech look brand new or like it's been fighting the Zeon since U.C. 0079. The amount of freedom you have is truly impressive. Want to make Samus from Metroid or one of the mechs from Metroid Prime: Federation Force? You absolutely can. Or maybe you want to recreate the exact look of the RGM-79 seen in 1999’s Gundam Side Story 0079: Rise from the Ashes for the Sega Dreamcast. Yup, you can do that too. You can also save and upload any of your custom builds and pose them in dioramas for a nice photo shoot. I can only imagine the crazy builds that will be available once the public servers come online.
The only real downside to the customization, is that at the end of the day, all of your designs will essentially handle the same way, and the base controls are a little clumsy. Most of this comes down to the way a couple key actions are implemented. First off, your block and dodge are on the same button. Block is triggered by holding the button while dodge is triggered with a quick press. But because of this setup, both actions will be limited by a small delay as the game waits to see if you’re going to keep holding down the button or not. Your jump and dash functions also share a button, but in this instance the action is dependent on whether you’re moving or not. You can only jump while standing still, while a dash will trigger if you’re in motion. Both of these make getting into position and dealing with enemy attacks awkward, and at times laggy. As a result I generally felt I was having more fun building than I was actually playing.
When it comes to playing specifically on Switch, this has proven to be a very solid port. The game looks sharp docked and only becomes noticeably soft occasionally in handheld mode. Oddly I found this was more common when in the lobby rather than in an actual mission, and usually only during cutscenes. I did see the frame rate drop now and then if combat got particularly intense but never for an extended period of time. I will note that loading screens can be just a hair lengthy, which can make moving from one arena to the next during missions a little less fluid than it should be. Still, overall this is clearly a game designed with the Switch’s hardware in mind, and the end result is a fairly attractive game in both docked and handheld modes.
I have very different opinions on Gundam Breaker 4 depending on what area of the game you ask me about. The story is bland but generally inoffensive. The standard combat is repetitive and unmemorable but the boss fights can be much more interesting. However the controls do leave something to be desired. The customization is fantastic and generally the highlight of the experience. And the Switch port itself is very well handled. At the end of the day I found Gundam Breaker 4 is at its best when you’re either building a unique Gunpla, or engaged in the more curated and intentionally designed one on one boss fights. I found myself having fun in these moments but wishing that they were more the focus of gameplay, and that the story was willing to commit to a bit more than stiff cutscenes that all take place in the same gray room. I couldn’t help but think of a game like Custom Robo and wish that Gundam Breaker was willing to commit to a more adventurous, almost Pokemon-like experience. A game where you actually explore a world, engaging in Gunpla battles as an RPG encounter mechanic, rather than selecting them from a list. Gundam Breaker 4 is good, but it feels like there is an obvious path to be something more.
Note: This review is being posted later than the original video version due to a backend site issue at original embargo. The content is the same as the original review.
Listen, at this point my metric for Aspyr’s Star Wars releases is pretty low. Battlefront really broke me, but there had been a long line of fascinating choices leading up to that point. So imagine my surprise when I start up the Switch version of Star Wars: Bounty Hunter and find a game that is running at 60fps with a maxed out resolution and some decent anti-aliasing. The cutscenes are all where they’re supposed to be. Graphical effects from the original releases aren’t just present but new ones have been added. Heck, even Jango Fett himself has a nicely updated model. Now there is one odd technical hiccup along the way but all in all, this is one of Aspyr’s better efforts.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter originally released on PS2 and GameCube back in 2002. It serves as a direct prequel to Jango Fett’s role in Star Wars Episode II. The story follows Jango as he takes on a mission that will ultimately lead him to where we find him in Attack of the Clones. The game itself is generally remembered as a lesser, though not outright bad, entry in the Star Wars video game pantheon. My older sister got the GameCube version when we were kids and after playing it for a while, we ultimately wound up trading it out for Star Wars Jedi Knight II: Jedi Outcast. So I went into this release having not touched Star Wars: Bounty Hunter in a little over two decades.
The game is separated into six chapters. Each of these chapters contains three levels, with the final level ending in a boss fight of some sort. Most levels amount to moving through a large, mostly linear environment and killing absolutely everything. Civilian in the way? No worries, the game doesn’t really care who you shoot as long as you’re shooting. In fact, if you play on a system other than the Switch, you’ll get an achievement for that. Now and then you’ll encounter some extremely light navigational puzzles. These amount to finding a switch for a door or bridge, or perhaps finding a grate to cut your way through. If you can restrain your craving for violence momentarily, each level also contains a set number of side bounties. By scanning enemies or other NPCs, you can check to see if there is an active bounty on them. Once scanned you can mark them and (hopefully) capture them alive. The only problem with this system is that Bounty Hunter doesn’t really have a stealth mechanic. Enemies seemingly detect you at random. Sometimes you can walk right up to an enemy and stand there for several seconds before they realize you are in fact famed bounty hunter Jango Fett. Others meanwhile will sense a disturbance in the force and start yelling threats at you from two rooms over. So getting a chance to scan a room for bounties can be easy or exceedingly difficult with seemingly no regard for how you’re actually playing.
Enemy AI in general is probably where this game has aged the worst. One level sees you breaking into a prison to find one of the prisoners. A riot eventually breaks out, which one would think might serve as a good cover. However, prisoners and guards alike seemingly have no interest in fighting each other, but rather have eyes only for Jango. It feels like a level that was set up for the guards and prisoners to fight each other, but then that part of the AI was never actually implemented.
All that being said, the actual moment to moment running and gunning feels pretty good for a 2002 action game. Jango’s blasters have a fairly generous auto aim and each one can target independently. You also have a lock on function, but it targets based on where Jango is looking, not where the camera is looking. This means you always have to turn directly into oncoming fire to get a lock. But the best mechanic by far is your jetpack. You unlock it halfway through the first chapter and it makes the combat, and level design so much more fun to engage with. Your control over Jango with the jetpack feels surprisingly agile for a third-person-shooter from 2002. Flying across elevated platforms all while dodging blaster fire and dishing out plenty of your own is still a lot of fun.
The Switch version itself looks to be built off of the GameCube version of Bounty Hunter, which featured improved model quality, textures, real-time shadows, and double the framerate compared to the PlayStation 2 version. That being said, all of these elements have been enhanced beyond their original versions as well. The in-game model for Jango Fett looks to have been completely remade and more closely matches the pre-rendered cutscenes. However, I didn’t notice similar changes anywhere else. Textures are all higher resolution and look quite sharp. A flashlight has been added which helps with some darker areas. From what I can tell, the Switch version gets all the updated graphics of the PC version of this remaster with the exception of ambient occlusion. This includes motion blur, which is pretty light and unobtrusive. Even if you’re someone who would rather not have the effect, it cannot currently be turned off.
But as I played I did have one nagging feeling looking at Jango Fett. Aren’t you a little short for a Bounty Hunter? A quick comparison with the original release proved my suspicion true. This new version of Bounty Hunter runs in 16:9 widescreen vs the 4:3 fullscreen of the original. However somewhere along the line the image got squashed and stretched slightly. Now, it isn’t the case that the 4:3 frame has simply been stretched to 16:9 as there is indeed more of the environment visible during gameplay on the left and right; lining up the two versions does reveal an inconsistency in aspect ratio. Most players likely won’t notice, but if you’re like me and are constantly aware of these things, it may stand out to you.
Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is simultaneously a fairly mediocre Star Wars game, while also being one of Aspyr’s best efforts. It still isn’t perfect, but it is largely an improvement on the original release, which I cannot always say for their ports and remasters. The Switch version specifically gets nearly all the new graphical features while maintaining 60 frames-per-second. While you may have forgotten just how repetitive Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is over the last twenty years, this is a pretty solid way to play it, so long as you can put up with a slightly shorter version of Jango Fett than you’re used to.
Gori: Cuddly Carnage is coming to Switch later this month on the 29th of August. A demo is also hitting the eShop today. But we've got your first look at the Switch version right here!
We also got to chat with John Kalderon about the development of the game, its insperations, and the challenges of porting to Switch. Check out both the trailer and the deep dive and if you're interested you can learn more about Gori: Cuddly Carnage right here.
GIVEAWAY ALERT: Want to win a cat carrier backpack AND a Switch copy of Gori: Cuddly Carnage? Follow and retweet this tweet to enter! And of course check out @GoriCarnage to learn more about the game!
complete rules and details below. (orange cat and bearded fellow not included) pic.twitter.com/Syy1OBlVoN
We've got our first gameplay trailer for Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions. The trailer shows of character creation in addition to single player and online multiplayer modes. Beyond that, the Switch version will also be getting a physical release sometime later this year. The Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 versions will see a physical release on Nov. 8, 2024. The Nintendo Switch edition will be released "this holiday season." Meanwhile the Digital Release is schedule for September 3, 2024.
No Man's Sky - Worlds Part 1 is a massive update that serves as a visual overhaul on all platforms. But can the Switch actually keep up with all these new features? Let's take a look.
Five years after taking off on Xbox One and PlayStation 4, Ace Combat 7 has landed on Switch. I knew going into this one that I enjoyed Ace Combat 7. In fact, I’d say that overall it's my favorite game in the series. When the first gameplay was revealed of the Switch version, I was surprised how close it looked to my memories of playing the original release. Now that I’ve got the game in hand, I can say this is right up there as one of the Switch’s best ports.
Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown, is an aerial combat sim that rides the line nicely between hardcore simulation and more arcade style gameplay. Right from the start of the game, you’ll be given the option to choose between novice and expert control setups. The novice setup will allow the left analogue stick to both adjust pitch and turn the plane left and right. This results in a very arcade-like experience, think all-range mode from Star Fox 64. Expert, on the other hand, requires you to actually tilt your plane left and right and handles more like an actual airplane. It gives more precise controls for those who are more familiar with aerial combat games, and is my preferred way to play.
Missions play out in a few general patterns. You either need to destroy specific targets, defend an objective, or just cause enough destruction to get your score beyond a certain threshold. Now and then a boss fight will shake up the encounter, but in general the depth in Ace Combat 7 is found in customizing and mastering your aircraft. Completing missions earns you points that can be redeemed for parts, weapons, and even entirely new fighter-jets. Each jet and its components have their own stats and may be more suited for one type of mission than another. For example, certain setups may be more conducive to destroying large land-based targets, while another might be more fit for weaving through airborne combat.
The biggest shakeup in gameplay for the series in this entry is the use of clouds as an actual gameplay mechanic. Clouds in Ace Combat 7 are beautifully rendered as complex volumetric objects. They not only look great, but they also directly interact with your aircraft and weapons. They’ll not only affect your physical visibility, they also make locking onto enemies and missile tracking less reliable. However, you can’t simply hide in them forever, as moisture will slowly cause ice to form, affecting the performance of your aircraft. Low hanging clouds can also hinder your ability to make out changes in terrain. As a result, they simultaneously make great cover while also increasing the odds that an unskilled pilot will simply crash into a mountain.
The Switch port of Ace Combat 7 is an impressive accomplishment. While one might initially think that a flight combat game might make for an easy port–as level of detail could be adjusted with minimal effect to gameplay–Ace Combat 7’s unique mechanics make that impossible. Most importantly, those clouds cannot simply be replaced with flat billboards as would often be the case. Their existence as real 3D volumes is a crucial gameplay mechanic. Terrain draw distance also can’t really be pulled back as the player needs to be able to look out and survey the entire battlefield at once. Luckily, both of these elements have been excellently preserved. Where we do see cutbacks is in things like shadow quality, pop in on near-camera detail such as trees, and of course frame rate. The Switch version runs at 720p docked, and about 540p in handheld mode. Both are treated with what looks like a simple pass of FXAA, a post processing anti aliasing solution. It doesn’t provide thorough coverage but it also doesn’t really produce any artifacts of its own, unlike other methods. I’ll also note that 720p is the same resolution as the original Xbox One release. In context then, that's quite an accomplishment for the Switch. Frame rate has been dropped to 30fps from the target of 60 on other platforms. But to be fair, the Xbox One and PS4 struggled to hit 60 at launch, so this makes sense. In my experience the frame rate held up well in actual gameplay, and I only experienced more noticeable drops in replays, where I suspect the graphical settings have been raised somewhat.
This is an extremely impressive port of an excellent flight combat game. I was surprised when this was announced for Switch, but have absolutely loved every moment of revisiting it. The unique mechanics of Ace Combat 7 are still a thrill five years after its original release, and they have been translated effectively here. Throw in an over-the-top but engaging story and a fantastic soundtrack, and you’ve got something special. Mission structure can get a little repetitive by the late game, but plenty of unlocks keep the experience pretty fresh the whole way through. Given the general lack of many Ace Combat games on Nintendo platforms, I’ll also note that you by no means need to have played the rest of the series to enjoy this one. This is an easy recommendation and a great late generation addition to any list of remarkable Switch ports.
Deliver Us the Moon hasn’t had the easiest road to the Switch. In fact, back in 2020 the Switch version was actually canceled. Publisher Wired Productions cited the pandemic as a major cause of this at the time. But now, four years later, Deliver Us the Moon has been delivered to Nintendo fans. And despite its troubled development, it's a pretty good port.
Deliver Us the Moon is a narrative-focused adventure game built around exploration and puzzle solving. You play as an astronaut who is sent to the moon to investigate after the power generating facilities on the surface go dark. A new form of energy has been discovered on the moon that is being transmitted to Earth. Without the base operational, Earth will run out of power. The story sees you not only working to restore a connection between Earth and the moon, but also to discover what happened. The story starts off pretty slow and didn’t immediately grab me, but after an hour or so, as more pieces started to come to light, I was hooked. Voice acting, music, and sound design in general are all excellent.
Gameplay shifts between first and third person dynamically based on the needs of a given environment. For example, if you’re navigating a zero gravity space station, you’ll generally play in first person. On the other hand, while exploring the surface of the moon, you’ll more often play in third person. The camera will also occasionally swap from third to first person if you’re in a tightly confined area where a third person camera would struggle, which I thought was a nice touch.
Early on, you’ll find a small laser cutter which can be used to cut through sealing bolts and wires. A little while later you’ll get a small robot called an A.S.E. which can be controlled remotely and sent into tight spaces. Puzzles are generally built around navigation. One early puzzle sees you needing to connect power generators to different doors in sequence in order to free up enough power to turn on a computer. Others might involve you sending your A.S.E. through an air vent to circumvent a locked door and find a way to open it. Some of these get pretty complex as the game goes on but never frustratingly so. Deliver Us the Moon does a nice job of shaking up the gameplay with unique one-off set piece moments as well, though some work better than others. Flying through open space to get to an airlock before you run out of air feels great, but quick time event based train operation feels somewhat out of place.
The Switch port itself is largely successful compared to its releases on other platforms. The publisher was kind enough to send along the Xbox Series X version as well for the sake of comparison. Playing them back to back, I was pleasantly surprised how well the Switch version holds up. You get the expected drop in resolution, lowered shadow quality, and the removal of screen-space reflections, but overall the game still looks quite good when playing docked. The dynamic shadows cast by your flashlight have been preserved, as have plenty of other real-time shadows, albeit at a low resolution. The game also makes extensive use of what I believe are dynamic cube maps for reflections. On other platforms, these are combined with screen-space reflections but the cube maps do a surprisingly good job of holding up on their own in the Switch version. The one sticking point here is the handheld experience. Both docked and handheld employ dynamic resolution, but the low end of handheld resolution gets extremely low. This tends to happen anytime you can see a wide open area, and the shift in resolution is extremely obvious. It makes looking around for small puzzle elements and objects significantly more difficult in these scenarios. The docked experience is largely excellent, but just keep in mind that handheld comes with some steep compromises.
Deliver Us the Moon is an excellent narrative adventure that comes to Switch mostly unscathed. The docked experience is pretty smooth, and all things considered, the concessions here are fairly light for a Switch port. The handheld experience is fine when navigating tight space station interiors, but gets extremely blurry anytime you enter a more complex environment or step out onto the surface of the moon. It isn’t unplayable in these moments, but the difference was enough to catch me off guard. Still if you’ve waited this long to play it on Switch, I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. This is an enthralling story that is definitely worth experiencing.
I recently had the chance to conduct a short interview with Ryunosuke Hagiwara, the producer on the Switch version of Ace Combat 7, which releases today. He gave some great insight into the technical challenges they face and where their priorities were in bringing the game to Switch. He also mentioned Star Fox!
John Rairdin：It has been a while since Ace Combat 7 originally released, what brought aboutthis Switch port?
Ryunosuke Hagiwara: When we conducted user research on ACE COMBAT around the world, we found thatthere are customers who are interested in ACE COMBAT but are unable to play it becausethey did not own a console. So we decided to release a Nintendo Switch version of ACE COMBAT 7 in order to allow asmany people as possible to play the game.
JR：How long has this port been in the works?
RH: Around 2022, we conducted the aforementioned user survey and as a result, we startedto consider the possibility of developing ACE COMBAT for other platforms so that morecustomers can experience being an ACE COMBAT hero.After that, through technical verification and development period, we went through a longperiod of trial and error to secure the frame rate and improve the graphic quality withoutcompromising the gameplay, and we were able to reach the quality of the productionversion with the help of the technology and strong desire of our partner companies.
JR：What sort of challenges did you face bringing this game to Switch?
RH: There was a possibility that the realistic cloud rendering of ACE COMBAT 7 could not bereproduced on Nintendo Switch during the verification phase.Other than that, we were able to reach the quality of the production version after a longperiod of trial and error to ensure the frame rate without compromising the gameplay.
Note from John: Ace Combat 7 makes use of a complex and dynamic volumetric cloud system that is very demanding to calculate and render
JR: Visually the game looks remarkably comparable to the original release. Were therespecific graphical effects or other elements you felt it important to preserve?
RH: One of the features of ACE COMBAT 7 is the realistic representation of clouds andweather conditions that affect the game in real time.We spent a lot of time to develop the Nintendo Switch version of ACE COMBAT 7 to ensurethat the realistic weather expressions and volume of the original version would remainunchanged, and that the quality of the game would be high enough to be released to theworld.
JR: Are you able to detail any performance metrics such as frame rate or resolutionsfor docked and handheld mode?
RH：Both TV mode and portable mode are 1280 x 720 30FPS (variable).
JR: This is marked as a Deluxe Edition, what previous content is included and is thereadditional optional content beyond that?
RH: The "Ace Combat™7: Skies Unknown Deluxe Edition" for the Nintendo The Switchversion of ACE COMBAT™7: SKIES UNKNOWN DELUXE EDITION is a luxury edition thatincludes the following items.Even those who have never played Ace Combat before can enjoy the game, so if you are atall interested, we hope you will take this opportunity to dive into the world of ACE COMBAT.
Contents
ACE COMBAT 7: SKIES UNKNOWN base game
Downloadable content " Three original aircraft sets" + "Three SP missions"
Part 3 “ACE COMBAT 7: SKIES UNKNOWN – ADFX-01 Morgan Set”
Part 4 “ACE COMBAT 7: SKIES UNKNOWN – Unexpected Visitor”
Part 5 “ACE COMBAT 7: SKIES UNKNOWN – Anchorhead raid”
Part 6 “ACE COMBAT 7: SKIES UNKNOWN - 10 million Relief Plan”
Bonus “Music Player Mode”
Playable Aircraft F-104C -Avril-
＊The F-104C was abandoned in a "graveyard of airplanes," and it took Avril and his team more than eight years to restore it. It is a drag racer in the sky, soaring toward the blue-black sky. Since it is not equipped with any armament, it can be used only in free flight mode.
*The regular F-104C with armament is included in the main game.
3 popular aircraft skins from the past series
8 popular emblems of the past series
For more information, please check the official website.
JR：If your team could work on one Nintendo franchise, which would you most like towork on?
RH： As the ACE COMBAT team, we still think it would be fun to create a "Star Fox" series. Thereare many elements that are close to the ACE COMBAT series, not only in game genre and play,but also in radio direction, and it is very exciting to fantasize about what kind of "Star Fox"Project ACES would create.
DarkStar One originally released on PC nearly twenty years ago, back in 2006. I first encountered it via its 2010 Xbox 360 version, and now it has made a surprise appearance on Switch. While plenty about DarkStar One shows its age at this point, it is still a competent space sim, with plenty of interesting concepts that have managed to hold up fairly well.
DarkStar One is a space sim with a heavy focus on RPG elements. You command the DarkStar One, a technologically advanced prototype spaceship. In it, you’ll explore an open universe as you take on jobs, fight pirates, and unravel a mystery around the death of your father. The generally gameplay loop consists of jumping into a sector, visiting a station, picking up a job, then navigating to wherever the job takes place. By doing quests and engaging in combat you’ll earn money that can be used to buy new parts for your ship. By exploring you’ll also find rare alien artifacts that can give unique special upgrades to the DarkStar One.
Movement is handled somewhat oddly compared to other similar games. Your ship doesn't really have adjustable speed. It can either stop, go, or boost. This makes navigating with any real finesse impossible and I generally resorted to killing my engines entirely and then just fethering the afterburners whenever I needed to move carefully in tight spaces. That being said, your ship does have the ability to strafe left and right, though not vertically. It can also move backwards, as can enemies who will occasionally use this ability to flip around at you and fire while you’re tailing them.
Enemy AI in general is reasonably clever if not terribly difficult. I did wind up raising the difficulty a notch higher than default as the standard difficulty makes the game very easy in most scenarios. Enemy variety is present but based on what area of space you’re in, so you’ll spend a long time fighting the same two human ships early on in the game.
DarkStar One’s greatest strength is in its open (though not seamless) world and its RPG mechanics. Its space combat is passable and enemies are reasonably fun to fight, but it was somewhat simple compared to its contemporaries in 2006 and remains so in 2024. Still, if you enjoyed classic Wing Commander Privateer games or more recent genre standouts such as Rebel Galaxy Outlaw, you’re likely to find something to enjoy here.
I remember back when Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon (or Luigi’s Mansion 2 depending on your region) was announced for Nintendo 3DS, my initial reaction was surprised confusion. While I enjoyed the original Gamecube game back at launch, it never struck me as something that would become a series. Then I played Dark Moon, and all those doubts melted away. I absolutely loved Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon back in 2013. Next Level Games’ interpretation of this universe is charmingly animated, visually astounding, and just fun to explore. Now in 2024, this remaster of Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon comes to us via Tantalus, the team behind the remasters of The Legend of Zelda Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword. I can say without a moment of hesitation, this is the best remaster they have ever produced of a Nintendo game.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD is exactly what you’d expect from the title. This is, from a content perspective, the exact same game you played on 3DS a decade ago. That comes with both the positives, and the negatives. The game is split between several different mansions this time around. Each one has its own unique visual theme and mechanical hooks. As Luigi you’ll venture into these mansions in search of pieces of the titular Dark Moon, which has been shattered by King Boo. Navigating these mansions will mean solving puzzles, fighting ghosts, and uncovering secrets. Most of the game’s difficulty comes down to figuring out how to get where you’re trying to go. Locked doors and secret passages weave through every mansion making exploring your surroundings thoroughly the key part of every mission.
Unique to Dark Moon, is a mission system that breaks up your trips to each mansion into specific objectives. Once an objective is complete, you’ll be whisked away back to a bunker to plan your next outing with Professor E. Gadd. Early on these missions are very short and the constant trips to and from the mansion can be a little grating. However, by a few missions in, your objectives will become more expansive, and you’ll be free to explore the mansions more thoroughly. You’ll also be given incentive to return to missions later to find hidden objectives and see if you can best your previous score. While this structure certainly has its moments of being overbearing early on, I find that it reminds me a bit of 3D Mario. Yes you’re visiting the same area multiple times, but each time things will have slightly changed to accommodate your current objective.
I found that Luigi feels a bit more intuitive to control on a traditional dual analogue controller rather than the 3DS. The right stick can now be used to modify Luigi’s aim independently of his movement. While it's not as fluid as either of the other games which were built with home consoles in mind, it does a lot to help Dark Moon fit in with the rest of the trilogy. But other than controls, Dark Moon is light on changes. This is essentially the 3DS game in HD. That being said, the HD in the title means much more than a resolution boost.
While not as immediately obvious as something like Metroid Prime Remastered, Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon has received a thorough visual overhaul. This is where I have to give Tantalus a lot of credit, as while nearly everything in the game has been rebuilt to a higher degree to detail, you may not immediately notice. This all comes down to how flawlessly they’ve preserved the original artistic intent of Next Level Games. I’ve always loved the way Dark Moon looked compared to the other games in the series. It is clean with a lot of straight edges used to build a slightly off balance world. All of this has been highlighted in the Switch version with brand new or modified 3D models in every scene. The goal was very clearly not to get this to the same look at Luigi’s Mansion 3, but rather to simply present the art of the 3DS game in a way that could hold up on the big screen, and I’d say they succeeded.
When it does come to technical performance and resolution, I can’t really come up with any complaints. In fact this might be the best image quality we’ve ever seen in a first party Switch game. Playing docked you’ll hit a full 1080p while handheld hits the Switch screen’s native 720p. Both of these configurations not only hit their maximum possible resolution, they also both have a nice pass of post process anti aliasing. I think this is especially crucial given the game's art style. All the harsh straight edges seen throughout the mansions would show very obvious pixel stair stepping without proper treatment. As is, even played on a big 4K TV, this looks fantastic. Frame rate also smooths out the somewhat uneven performance of the original and maintains a steady 30 fps throughout. The only times I was able to see any fluctuation in performance was when playing the online Scarescraper mode. But I’d attribute that to online connectivity rather than an actual performance problem. I will note on the topic of Scarescraper, that while I’m glad the mode remains from the original game, I do wish it had an updated system for joining games. Rather than just being able to quickly find the next available game, you’ll have to sift through a list looking for the mode and difficulty you want, then hope it hasn’t filled up before you hit the A button.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD does not reinvent the original by any means. If the mission based gameplay structure bothered you on 3DS, it won’t be any better here. While that particular issue largely goes away as the game goes on, I would have liked some quality of life updates for multiplayer. That being said, this is without a doubt the definitive version of Dark Moon. The love and care with which it has been remastered deserves calling out. Tantalus has done an incredible job here. The original work of Next Level Games really shines as their animation and underlying art direction remain unchanged. This is easily the best way to play Luigi’s Mansion Dark Moon.
Is Nintendo's strategy of going from zero to one hundred on Mario RPGs ultimately going to hurt their own sales? We did into sales data to explore the risks of this Mario RPG rebirth.
Yes, it is running on original Switch hardware. Join me as I finally get to take a deep dive into our first look at Metroid Prime 4: Beyond, and explore its technical makeup.
Keep in mind this analysis is based on an early trailer so the metrics discussed here may not necessarily represent the final game.
When Wizardry: Proving Grounds of the Mad Overlord released for the Apple II back in 1981, it became a primary influence in the creation of RPGs as a genre of video games. Alongside Akalabeth (released in 1979), Wizardry was one of the earliest attempts to convert the pen and paper gameplay of Dungeons & Dragons into a video game. It is generally credited with being the first party-based RPG ever made, and alongside the Ultima series, it would go on to inspire games like Dragon Quest and Final Fantasy. As a western RPG fan, Dungeons & Dragons fan, and just a fan of weirdly ambitious games of the past, I’m ashamed to say that I’d never played Wizardry. So I was curious if this updated version from Digital Eclipse would hold up for me in 2024.
Wizardry is a first-person dungeon crawler (another sub-genre of RPG that it helped originate). You control a party of six characters that you can either custom build, or recruit from randomly generated presets. You’ll spend most of your time exploring and mapping a large multi-floor dungeon. Throughout the dungeon you’ll look for secrets and loot, and engage in turn-based combat via random encounters. Combat is based around the basic idea of having three melee fighters up front, supported by three magic users in the back. You can alter this formation but it is generally a good idea to stick with this basic layout. Beyond attacking, characters can also investigate their opponent to attempt to learn more about them. Learning about your opponent can reveal their weaknesses, resistances, and additional stat information.
You’ll want to periodically make your way back out of the dungeon and to the surrounding village to heal and resupply. Here you’ll find a shop for purchasing and selling items, an inn to heal and level up, a temple to revive downed party members, and various facilities for creating and recruiting party members. This was all represented as a text based menu in the original game, but here you get actual buildings to select with dedicated UI elements for each one.
This modern version of Wizardry has been updated in almost every way. The dungeon, in which you’ll spend most of your time, has been rebuilt in true 3D as opposed to the simple line drawings of the original version. A variety of quality of life options have been added to slightly alter the way the game plays. However, I feel it is worth noting that none of these options would constitute any sort of easy mode. You can’t make enemies easier, or make yourself invincible. Though elements have been modernized, at its core that underlying difficulty balance has remained. And much of that is because deep down, this version of Wizardry is running on the same source code as the original. To the extent that you have the option at any point, to see the game exactly as it was running alongside the modern version. I tended to leave this in a small window off to the side as constantly having that point of comparison is fascinating.
The RPG systems borrow heavily from first edition Dungeons & Dragons. This is the biggest hurdle that yet remains in Wizardry: understanding how to play it. Even this updated version doesn’t really give you a rulebook for how things work. Even my existing experience with Dungeons & Dragons couldn’t help me with everything as core mechanics of the game were very different in that first edition. For example, in Wizardry, like 1st Edition Dungeons & Dragons, the lower your armor rating, the better your armor is. While pretty counterintuitive to any modern RPG, that's how Dungeons & Dragons did it up until 3rd Edition so that's how Wizardry does it, too. The rules aren’t terribly complicated, but there are times where age has rendered them somewhat counterintuitive for a modern player, and this version doesn’t offer any help in that department. Don’t feel like a fraud if you need to search the internet for how these mechanics work.
Your enjoyment of Wizardry in 2024 is going to depend a lot on the amount you’re willing to put into it. I quickly became obsessed with taking a quick run into a new corner of the dungeon every night before going to bed. But a lot of that was built on an existing interest in old western RPGs, an understanding of Dungeons & Dragons mechanics, and a willingness to look up the older rules. The game itself isn’t really interested in helping you with any of that. Instead, they’ve made some smart adjustments to smooth out some of the aging gameplay while still staying very true to the original. It is also worth noting that every quality-of-life change can be toggled on or off, so if you want this to play exactly like it did in 1981, that is an option. You can even swap to the dungeon layouts from the later console ports. This is an extremely faithful update of an important game. And if you’re willing to give it the opportunity, you find it is just as addictive today as it was forty years ago.
Anyone who has followed my reviews for a while will know that I often praise a good 7.5/10. I find that games that sit around that score do so because they tried some weird new ideas. Generally, not all those ideas work flawlessly, but I love a game that is willing to try something fresh and different. Biomutant is one of those games. I originally picked it up on Xbox Series X back in 2021. Yes it was rough around the edges, but it also felt like a game out of time. A game from an era where you could take a risk rather than ensuring that every release be a major blockbuster. Now it is coming Nintendo Switch. It looks a little uglier, and there are no shortage of graphical downgrades, but in the end this is still very much that perfect flavor of 7.5.
Biomutant is a post apocalyptic game, but not in the general sense. The world ended a long time ago, but you’ve sorta moved on. The world isn’t gray and dead as the genre so often is. Instead it's bright and colorful. Wildlife has been left to mutate in strange ways, and new cultures have sprung up as a result. However this newest cycle of life now faces its own apocalypse. You play as a wandering ronin, orphaned from his family after his village was attacked when he was a child. Your journey will ultimately see you deciding between trying to save the world, or letting it burn away. All of this factors into a morality system that will affect the way in which you engage with the world.
The story of Biomutant is balanced between several different primary quest lines. One sees you hunting down four World-Eaters. These World-Eaters are giant creatures who are feeding on the World Tree, causing it to die. To reach them you’ll journey across the expansive open-world, making use of different vehicles and tools you’ll unlock along the way. Another primary quest focuses on uniting the divided tribes of the world under a single banner. To do this, you’ll align yourself with a tribe of your choosing, then work with them to claim the territory of the others. Scattered across all of this is no shortage of side quests and activities as well, ensuring you stay pretty busy. Though you’re generally free to focus your attention wherever you find most interesting. The story itself is told in an unique way. Every character speaks in a garbled language, which is then translated for you by the narrator. Your attachment to the narrator will determine whether this is charming or grating, but for myself I really enjoy this element of storytelling.
Moment to moment gameplay takes the form of an open-world, action RPG. As you explore the world you’ll engage in both ranged and melee combat. Your exact loadout of weapons and style of combat is up to you. I generally found that melee combat felt pretty loose, as enemies don’t suffer appropriate knockback when hit. It's unfortunate as it feels like Biomutant wants you to engage with its martial arts inspired melee combat system, but it just isn’t very good. As a result I focused more on ranged combat. Here I opted for dual wielding two pistols. As you progress you’ll not only find new weapons, but new components to modify them, or to just build your own. The same goes for armor components which can be modified with the scraps you find throughout the map.
The world is covered in hidden caves to explore, villages to rescue from attack, and people to help. That said, the rewards for most of these activities are generally comparable to what you’ll get in random loot drops. I found this made side quests less compelling, as I rarely got anything particularly useful out of them that I couldn’t find by just wandering around. Though I do like that each named area in the game comes with a checklist for every major loot cache to find in it. This makes it very easy to tell when you’ve finished clearing out an area.
As for the Switch port itself, it isn’t the prettiest, but it is solid from a performance standpoint. The Switch targets thirty frames-per-second and generally maintains this goal. The exception being brief traversal stutters when moving quickly through the open-world. This appears to be caused by chunks of the world loading in, but it's never for more than a brief moment. I was also occasionally able to get some slowdown in large combat encounters, but for the most part, even these held up well. All that being said, the cutbacks are pretty aggressive to achieve this. The original release of Biomutant is actually a pretty nice looking game. The Switch version looks pretty rough by comparison. Foliage has been pulled back hugely, which has a significant effect on the look of the open-world. Screen-space reflections are missing from large bodies of water. The depth of field effect is missing from combat encounters. Perhaps most of all, texture resolution is pretty bad. None of the environmental textures hold up to inspection. On the other hand, there are some nice features that have been preserved. A well implemented pass of temporal anti-aliasing ensures a clean and reasonably sharp image. This is helped along by a sharpening filter which can be freely adjusted in the options menu. Screen-space ambient occlusion is still in effect which really helps in more enclosed areas to fill in corners with shade. Speaking of shade, real time dynamic shadows from the sun and moon are still active, albeit at a low resolution. Most importantly, fur shades are still present on every character. They aren’t as high quality as they are on other systems, but they still generally look nice, and have a huge effect on the visual identity of the game.
Biomutant is one of those games that isn’t going to appeal to everyone. Even the people like me who enjoy it, won’t argue that it's flawless. But it is an ambitious game, developed by a small team that is happy to try new things and take risks. Biomutant is one of those AA games you would have picked up on the Playstation 2 and absolutely loved as a kid. When you return to it as an adult, it may not hold up that well, but the underlying things you loved about it would shine through. This is that sort of low budget experiment that we so rarely see these days, and I can’t help but enjoy it. Beneath its flaws is an interesting open-world action RPG that manages to hold up fairly well on Switch.
Possibly Nintendo’s biggest surprise announcement of the year is here in the form of Endless Ocean Luminous. It has been 14 years since the second Endless Ocean game released on the Nintendo Wii, and I was curious to see how this format would hold up outside of that more casual Wii market, and how it could be modernized for 2024. Now we didn’t receive early code for this one so these will be some early technical and gameplay impressions based on my first few hours with the game.
Right off the bat I can say this game is going to be divisive. It's extremely slow paced, you’re never in danger, and the challenge comes simply from exploring and finding everything. Its also structured in such a way that you can’t just rush through the story. Chapters are gated behind documenting a certain number of fish so you’ll need to take breaks from the story to just sorta go wander around.
Something I do really appreciate about this entry and a way in which they’ve modernized the formula, is in the use of procedural environments for your dives. Whether you’re playing solo or online, when you start a dive the area you’ll dive into is generated randomly on the fly. These environments aren’t incredibly ambitious but given how much time you’ll need to spend going on dives, this does ensure some freshness each time. These dives do really seem to be better when playing online, as the areas are huge and documenting everything solo will take you a very long time. My experiences online have obviously been limited so far, but it will be interesting to see how populated these servers stay long term. For the sake of this video I have focused on single player dives, primarily just because I wanted to bum around looking at technical stuff like texture detail, lighting, and of course resolution. But all of my findings in single player carry over to multiplayer as well.
Endless Ocean Luminous is a very clean looking game, and I think this is both an artistic choice as well as a utilitarian one. When playing single player the game can look a little bland, however it does ensure that performance keeps up fine in multiplayer, at least in my experiences thus far. And that's not to say the game is devoid of nice visual touches. Fish are well detailed overall, though some do hold up better to scrutiny than others. Divers, though simple, are stylistically distinct and stand out nicely against the gloom. The surface of the water above you just makes use of a simple cube map for reflections but it looks very attractive. When diving at night or heading into a dark area, a flashlight kicks on to illuminate the area ahead of you. It interacts nicely with the simple but effective texture work on fish and the environment. Though I would have liked to see more dynamic shadows cast by the sun and by your flashlight. The game only targets 30fps and seems to have no trouble hitting it. Once again I assume this modest target is built around the demands of multiplayer. That being said, this is a very slow paced game, so 30fps was just fine with me. Resolution looks sharp hitting a full 1080p docked and 720p handheld. I haven’t seen evidence of either of these being dynamic so at least in the resolution department, we’re getting everything we could ask for. The image isn’t anti-aliased at all so depending on your TV resolution, you may notice some harsh edges when docked, but when in handheld mode, you’re at least getting a perfect native resolution, even if the image is very raw.
My primary issue with what I’ve seen of Endless Ocean Luminous so far is that it seems somewhat simplified compared to the two previous entries. Multiplayer was clearly the focus here but a lot of the expanded gameplay of the previous games just isn’t here. The only voiced character seems to be your companion AI, while the occasional other diver you meet in the story only speaks to you via text boxes. There is no above water area so while characters will refer to sending an artifact back to HQ, you never actually seem to see it. Contrast this with the second game where you had an actual base of operations you could visit between dives, and characters you’d interact with. Luminous feels like a simplified experience by comparison.
It isn’t exactly a hot take to say this game isn’t going to be for everyone. Unfortunately I feel like even some existing Endless Ocean fans may feel like this one is missing something. At the same time, procedural environments and online multiplayer can add a lot to the experience. I’m looking forward to continuing to explore it and see if any of these issues resolve themselves later on, or perhaps new things will be introduced to replace them entirely. Regardless, Endless Ocean Luminous seems to be a technically conservative game that ultimately results in a very reliable and solid technical outcome that isn’t showy at the cost of performance. A lot will hinge on the online community for this game, hopefully there is enough here to draw enough divers to fill the sea.
Originally released for Xbox 360 and Playstation 3 in 2011, El Shaddai: Ascension of the Metatron is a visually bold and narratively confusing third person action game that manages to remain compelling more than a decade later. The game is very loosely based on The Book of Enoch, a non-canon book in both Jewish and Christian scripture. Like that book it centers around a group of fallen angels called the Watchers. You play as Enoch, deployed to bring these fallen angels to justice, all while inexplicably adorned in what one can only assume are Heaven’s most holy pair of Levi’s Jeans.
El Shaddai’s gameplay is split between 3D and 2D segments. The 3D segments play out as straightforward hack and slash levels. You’ll move through a generally linear environment with some light platforming challenges before being periodically stopped to fight off a few waves of enemies. Your moveset is fairly limited, but what makes combat more interesting is a focus on stealing weapons from enemies. Different weapons have different strengths and weaknesses. Being effective in combat will often require you to swap out weapons multiple times in a single encounter to deal with different enemy types. It winds up being pretty fun if admittedly somewhat repetitive.
2D levels on the other hand tend to focus much more on platforming. Combat in these sections is limited to fending off very weak enemies that are more interested in hampering your platforming than actually killing you. I found these segments significantly less interesting than the 3D segments and the platforming physics really just aren’t strong enough to support these stages. Your jumps are stiff and your movement feels awkward when confined to a flat plane. They reminded me a bit of the platforming-focused single player stages in many of the Super Smash Bros. games. Not unplayable by any means, but a very obvious weak point.
Where El Shaddai stands out and goes from a passable action game to something much more impactful is in its art design. Everything in El Shaddai is represented in a deeply abstract manner. Some stages look like a comic book or a Japanese painting. You may be on a series of platforms high above a strange cityscape or wandering through bonelike cave structures in a void of pure white. What keeps you coming back to El Shaddai after each level isn’t the scattered bits of story, the combat, or the platforming; it's the absolutely enthralling world. I wondered going in whether these visuals would still feel impressive 13 years later and they absolutely do. To this day, I’ve never played another game that looks quite like El Shaddai.
If you come in looking for an exciting third-person action title, you’ll find a passable game here. If you’re just into vaguely Biblical video game fan fictions and want something with slightly less “dude bro” energy than Dante’s Inferno or Darksiders, this is probably up your alley. But if you just want a bizarre fever dream to show off the incredibly beautiful yet abstractly unsettling worlds a video game can create, El Shaddai is absolutely your game.
I had every intention of writing a very normal review for Star Wars: Battlefront Classic Collection. When I first booted it up during the pre-launch period to just play some Galactic Conquest, I was actually pretty positive about it. Performance held up well, image quality was good, all of the nice per-pixel effects from the Xbox version were preserved (something I’ve learned can’t be counted on in Aspyr Star Wars ports), and in general this seemed like a solid version of the game. Then I played online and found it borderline unplayable. I was alerted by another NWR staff member to check out the single player mode in Battlefront 2 where sure enough, half the cutscenes were just randomly missing. In the days that followed we’d find out some of the new features in the game were actually pulled directly from a mod with no credit to their creator. Even the little voice in my head that said “surely they’ll fix it” was shot down by memories of the promised but never delivered Sith Lords Restored update for Knights of the Old Republic 2.
To be blunt, I’ve personally reviewed half of the Star Wars ports Aspyr has released on Switch, and I’ve purchased all of the rest. Their work has ranged from just adequate to well below expectations, but after Knights of the Old Republic 2 and Battlefront Classic Collection, I think it's time for Star Wars and Aspyr to part ways. These games deserve better than this. Today I’d just like to work my way through the Battlefront Classic Collection, highlight the issues, give credit in the few places it is legitimately due, then leave it up to you. I will not be giving the game a score because frankly that would require a fully playable product to review, and I don’t believe Aspyr has delivered that.
Both of these games were originally released at a time where online gaming on home consoles was very young. So whether you consider these games to be predominantly built around online or offline play will just depend on where you were at in terms of online gaming at the time they were released. But it's fair to say that objectively, the expanded online multiplayer is a huge draw for this collection. At launch, it didn’t work. Only a few dedicated servers, supporting 64 players apiece, were available to the thousands of players who logged on. You could also play on user hosted servers but performance took a huge hit while using these servers even if the host's internet was fast and reliable. Since launch some new dedicated servers have come online but the active player base has dropped to under 100 active players last time I checked (on a Friday night). On the bright side, the servers are much more capable of supporting this, and I had some reasonably well performing matches during that time, but at no point did I play with a full lobby. The closest I ever got was about 50 players at which point the game became laggy until enough people left. Good luck finding the 64 player matches the game was sold on.
Now let’s focus on some of the new content. Another major selling point of this release were new heroes and villains to play as, and the ability to play Heroes VS Villains on any map. When this was revealed in the initial Nintendo Direct trailer the fan community noticed that the work of modder iamashaymin appeared to be present in the collection. Aspyr clarified that this had been a mistake and the modded code would not be present in the final version. A little data mining by iamashaymin evidently revealed their mod was very much still in the game.
By far the weirdest issue I’ve seen is the missing cutscenes in Star Wars Battlefront 2. Before and after each level of the single player campaign you’re supposed to be treated to a pre-rendered cutscene narrated by Temuera Morrison who played Jango Fett, Boba Fett, and about 200,000 clone troopers with a million more well on the way. The intro cutscenes are present and accounted for but the cutscenes at the end of each level just aren’t there. As you’d expect this leaves about half the story completely untold and makes for some fun narrative timeskips.
But here’s the thing, beyond that single player bug in Battlefront 2, if you’re playing offline the game is largely fine. I’ve seen some posts online indicating major graphical bugs but I’ve never been able to recreate these, at least in the Switch version running on real hardware. I have noticed some very minor graphical touches like bloom (which were likely tied to resolution in the original release) feel quite weak as a result in this version. But recent patch notes lead me to believe this is already being actively dealt with. The default aim sensitivity is quite high in Battlefront 1, even as someone who plays plenty of competitive shooters. But a quick visit to the options menu can fix that. Meanwhile Battlefront 2’s default sensitivity is far too low. All of the nice bump mapping and effects from the Xbox version are here, and for my money the game generally looks better overall than any previous version, including the PC release. And actual native widescreen support on a console version of these games is always a win.
Unfortunately this does mean that they’ve bloated what should realistically take up about 10GB to over 30GB on Nintendo Switch. Meanwhile the other consoles somehow take up an outrageous 70GB of space. For reference I still have the original two Battlefront games installed on my Xbox Series X and they take up a total of 7GB between the two of them. Even with upscaled textures that is a remarkable amount of bloat that is honestly hard to justify for what you’re getting.
At the end of the day, if you plan to only play offline in Galactic Conquest mode, you’ll probably have a decent time. If you engage with any other part of this release, you will encounter some sort of issue. I wish I could say that I was shocked that these games would be released in this state but I’ve been covering Aspyr’s Star Wars ports for too long to be surprised anymore. A lot of very separate, very bad decisions needed to all happen at once to allow this product to exist. It is ultimately a culmination of everything Aspyr has gotten wrong in their Star Wars ports for the last five years. How they have maintained the rights and how Dark Forces somehow escaped to Nightdive instead (thank the maker) I’ll never know. It is time to put more care into re-releasing these games. These games are iconic, oftentimes genre shifting, and they deserve better than this.
Highwater is a unique and charming narrative adventure. The story is set in a post-apocalyptic, flooded world. What is left of humanity is relegated to small islands. The rich elites live in a place called Alphaville and until recently, were sending out aid to the rest of the world. But now it appears that the citizens of Alphaville are intending to leave Earth altogether. Outside of their walls, insurgent militia are forming in the wake of food and supply shortages. Our hero, Nikos, has decided that he needs to journey to Alphaville, find a way inside, and escape with them from a world that is clearly on its last legs.
Most of Highwater’s gameplay is what you’d expect from a narrative adventure. You sail your small boat from island to island, talking to people, completing quests, and occasionally branching off the linear story to explore some optional areas. Sprinkled on top of that, however, are some very light tactical RPG elements.
When faced with an enemy, you’ll enter into turn-based, tactical combat. There is no real leveling system or skill trees, so combat isn’t particularly grindy. Rather each encounter feels like a very intentional puzzle. The linear, scripted nature of the game means that each encounter is well thought out and balanced based on the party you have. Your one bit of wiggle room is in optional weapons and buffs you can equip to your characters. These are largely found by exploring side areas. Most of the time, though, it's just about effectively managing your very set resources and making use of environmental hazards to take out foes effectively. Combat is fun, if a little slow to move between turns. That being said, I did notice that the equipment screen is devoid of any sort of control guide. Navigating it and switching between weapons and buffs is vague and often requires some random button pushing. The game does tell you the controls once, the first time you open the menu, so you better be paying attention because they won’t tell you again.
By far Highwater’s greatest strength is in its story. The plot is told through a combination of character interactions, along with regular radio broadcasts that give you a sense of what's going on in the wider world. The whole story has a great, albeit grim, sense of humor. Satire abounds both in the plot and in random bits of newspapers and other things you can find lying around. The world feels inevitably doomed and yet the game itself is not dark or depressing. The visuals are bright and upbeat and the soundtrack is chill. It feels as though there is an unspoken theme of finding good people doing their best in spite of the world falling apart around them.
Highwater's well told story, and surprisingly deep gameplay, made it hard to put down. It's not quite like any other narrative adventure game I’ve ever played. Combat and menu design can be a little clunky, but ultimately every encounter serves as a deliberate and well crafted puzzle. This is a very fresh take on a post apocalyptic story that oozes with satire, dark humor, and some oddly cozy end of the world vibes.
2022's trio of Pokémon games had some great ideas but weren't exactly winning any awards for their technical stability and graphical fidelity. So, what's different about Legends Z - A that has us excited and cautiously optimistic?
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