The recent 2023 movie Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem was a delightful surprise in my household. I loved it and so did my two young boys. So when Outright Games announced TMNT Mutants Unleashed - a video game based on the movie - I was excited to hopefully ride that wave of turtle excitement into a fun video game. That excitement was fleeting as Mutants Unleashed is all over the place in its execution despite some good ideas and a presentation that follows up nicely on the style of the film.
Mutants Unleashed’s surprisingly deep plot follows up right after the events of Mutant Mayhem, showing the aftermath of the shelled quartet’s triumph and acceptance. More mutants (“Mewbies” as the teenage turtles call them) surface, largely to provide the beat-’em-up gameplay with some cannon fodder. The story introduces new characters, including a bunch of teenage human friends for the turtles to interact with. As per usual with Outright Games’ more children-oriented games, the amount of voice acting is great, especially for younger players. In general, the dialogue does a great job of capturing the vibe of the movie and while the plot veers more into side story than main event, it’s still a compelling tale.
Given TMNT’s beat-’em-up game history, I was looking forward to some fun co-op brawling, but the combos and systems in this game feel undercooked. It leans more character action than vintage brawler, which would have been a better choice if the character action felt tighter. Each of the four shelled warriors have their own abilities and skills, even if the multiplayer tops out with two players. While I was less engaged by the combat, I’ll give credit to the fact that it’s relatively easy to pick up and play, giving it broader appeal to all ages. However, unlike Outright Games’ more toddler-oriented games (Bluey, Paw Patrol, etc.), Mutants Unleashed skews to older ages, so the lack of depth and complexity to the combat is more of a detraction.
I was relatively unaware that Mutants Unleashed also hid some interactive social segments that seem inspired by Persona and recent Fire Emblems. You can take a turtle on different events to spend time with friends, but all of it is so slow and drawn out (and largely doesn’t feature voice acting)n that it grinds the pace of the game to a halt, even more so because the co-op play doesn’t really factor in much here. It draws out the length of the overall game to double-digit hours much to the detriment of the entire package because the content here does not withstand 15-20 hours of play. Adding fuel to that fire is the Switch port, which is adequate in motion but is bogged down by some technical hiccups and extremely long load times. Booting into the game took so long that I initially thought it was broken.
TMNT Mutants Unleashed has some really good ideas that don’t coalesce into a great game. The combat is fine, but nothing to write home about. The social RPG concept is novel, but not well executed. It’s all the more frustrating because the writing for the relatively engaging plot is great. Part of me wished this game had some time to be refined because the framework of something totally radical is here. It just doesn’t make it out of the sewers.
There is no denying that developer Nomada Studio’s debut game - the 2018 release Gris - is a beautiful, moving game. An emotional story about grief and loss, Gris offered a gorgeous and contemplative journey that I enjoyed my time with. Gris was widely acclaimed, won a bunch of awards, and overall was an unqualified success. I did have one knock against the gameplay: that it was maybe a little too focused on the experience and not so much on the act of playing the game. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it personally was what prevented Gris from being one of my favorite games of that year. Nomada Studio’s second game Neva picks up a lot of the magnificent visual aplomb, but adds a crucial engaging element: combat. It’s not a flawless addition to the experience, but it did enough to make Neva more of a game and less of a puzzling walk.
Neva’s story is similar in presentation and style to Gris. While Gris was more focused on the parent and child relationship, Neva focuses more on the human and pet relationship, as you control a woman named Alba who is bound to a wolf cub named Neva after a traumatic incident in the game’s introduction. You wander through side-scrolling environments, completing the occasional puzzle, performing some platforming challenges, and fighting off some dark evil forces. The variety is what stood out most to me, as you would have the occasional segment that focused on just going forth with your beloved dog and taking in the scenery, only to be interrupted by a fight where you and your pup need to fend off enemies.
The combat never gets too complex but easy-to-grasp controls and a good enough variety of enemies keep it fresh throughout. Alba has a simple attack and a dodge roll, with a few flourishes added in as you progress. A few segments feel a little kill room-y, but it also happened at a clip where I’d start to have that thought, and then the segment would end. The only parts I didn’t really enjoy were the chase sequences, which are also the only part of the game where you can die in the Story Mode difficulty. The tension created as you have to move quickly is good, but they felt more punishing compared to everything else throughout the game.
I’ve been a pet owner my entire life and have experienced my fair share of pet-centric media. This is one of the most impressive examples, doing a tremendous job of capturing that connected feeling to an animal through a central element of working your way through the seasons. The game is split into four overarching segments (one for each season) and you see the growth of Neva through each one as well as the growth of your relationship. It’s emotional along the way. I would protect this wolf with my life and well, that is certainly a thing you have to do a lot in this game.
I preferred Neva to Gris, though both games are triumphant and artistic video games that will probably make you cry like a baby. If you’re a lifelong pet owner like myself, Neva has the potential to hit you like a train, but it’s also a universal enough feeling to work for anyone. The combat is a great addition to the video game aspect that definitely filled in a hole for me in the experience. Nomada Studio continues their penchant for making gorgeous games that are packed with emotional resonance. Now that they’ve told game stories about parents and pets, we’ll see how they can make us all cry next.
John arrives with his pick for the Game Club and let's just say it doesn't go over quite as well as Outer Wilds did. Join us as we look back at what should have been an incredible spiritual sequel to Metroid Prime, but was instead a budget title developed in an afternoon.
The video game developer Good-Feel has been around for nearly 20 years and for most of that time, they’ve worked closely with Nintendo on games such as Kirby’s Epic Yarn and Yoshi’s Woolly World. That’s continued to this day with the release of Princess Peach Showtime earlier in 2024. But before Good-Feel was formed, the founders of the company worked at Konami, specifically the Ganbare Goemon series (for more on this, check out our history of Good-Feel). They somewhat revisited those Goemon roots with their self-funded game Bakeru, which first came out in Japan a year ago but is now coming out worldwide courtesy of publisher Spike-Chunsoft. Bakeru is not a Goemon game, even if the main character and overall setting is very evocative of the same Japanese mythology that fueled Goemon’s world. What Bakeru is is an enjoyable if simplistic adventure that might be closest in play style to Kirby and the Forgotten Land. It’s an overly cute game that I wish was a little more ambitious but it’s still a fun and varied ride that shows off how skilled Good-Feel is at making Nintendo-esque games.
Set in what’s dubbed “Fairy Tale Japan,” the whimsical story sets the heroic Bakeru fighting against the evil Oracle Saitaro as he tries to take over Japan with his weird festival. You travel around Japanese prefectures in a linear order, going through more than 50 stages. Most of the stages are set in 3D landscapes where you follow a relatively straightforward path to fight enemies, find collectables, and most importantly, destroy at least three festival lanterns so you can get the vile partiers out of the area.
Most of the gameplay feels like a beat-’em-up, as you make use of Bakeru’s drum to beat the tar out of groups of enemies. This is done by hitting the left and right triggers to chain drum combos and execute a handful of chargeable special attacks. You can also dodge roll and block, but outside of a few specific scenarios, you can find a lot of success by just bouncing around with the triggers. The combat does slowly evolve over time, helped out by the new additions to the Western release of the Hurricane and Spinning Top attacks (though I didn’t play the Japanese release so I can’t totally compare the before/after). Special transformations are also unlocked as you progress, typically from defeating bosses. These either tie into level puzzles or just make you super powerful. It’s all very cute, and I definitely cackled as some of them were unleashed for the first time, but they mostly make an easy game even easier and no matter what, at a certain point though, you’re just mashing buttons through relatively pleasant environments.
Every few levels you go through some type of special stage, whether it’s a race or even a 3D shooter. It’s in those moments that I kept wishing for Bakeru to be more like the old Goemon games, because that’s where I was reminded of the chaotic energy of Mystical Ninja’s novel diversions. Bakeru is not totally a Goemon game like they were in the ‘90s, and that’s fine. I’m just trying to level-set for all of you. That chaotic energy came out to me in full strength in the collectables. You can find three hidden items in each level that are cute and sometimes funny, but the best bit in all of Bakeru is the five collectable bits of trivia found in each level. You essentially need to find five pieces of golden poop that then spit out a random fact at you. It serves no greater purpose, but you can revisit all the trivia in a menu if you wish. Hestu and the Koroks would be proud.
Bakeru is an enjoyable romp that consistently delivers lighthearted action with a lot of charm even if it gets a little repetitive the deeper you get into it. Good-Feel clearly learned a lot from working with Nintendo because this game deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as Nintendo’s lighter fare. This isn’t quite the Goemon spiritual successor I felt I was promised, but Bakeru is still a good time (especially for younger players) and I hope that Good-Feel both continues working with Nintendo and continues to work on projects like this.
The SteamWorld series has been kicking around the world of Nintendo for more than a decade, but as we near the end of the Switch’s life, it has faded more into the background, far away from the early days of the Switch when SteamWorld Dig 2 was an early indie highlight. Their latest game, however, is easily developer Thunderful’s best effort since Dig 2, as they revisit the turn-based strategy of SteamWorld Heist with the aptly named SteamWorld Heist 2. This is a bigger and more expansive helping of strategy compared to the original, with a lot more customization and variety. Something can be said about the straightforward focus of the original Heist, but even with a few issues, Heist 2 is a welcome addition to the SteamWorld canon, adding in a fuller, more realized world with lots of juicy strategic fun.
While the original took you from level-to-level on a point-to-point space map, Heist 2 throws you into the water. Early on you take control of a boat that allows you to cruise around bodies of water, seeking new missions, enemy boats, and a decent amount of secrets. The missions are of the same style as the original: 2D side-scrolling maps with a lot of verticality and typically procedurally generated enemy placements. You roll into these situations with a team of robots, making use of their different classes to move around the map and shoot down the enemies. Each character has two action points that can be spent on movement or actions. As someone who has played through the original Heist a few times, diving back into these missions was like riding a new souped-up bike. I immediately dove back into the strategy and started getting used to all the new bells and whistles.
The biggest shift is that you can change your character classes by equipping them with different guns and then work on multiclassing the characters in a way where you mix and match abilities and buffs to uniquely spec out your roster. For example, I took a default Sniper class character and switched them over to an Engineer class that had the ability to take two shots. Using the Sniper class abilities I had unlocked, I was able to make it so those two shots were far more accurate. That’s just the tip of the iceberg though as you can fiddle around with the six(?) different classes and make your ideal version for each character. Heist 2 does run into the issue where every character starts to be able to play similarly, as the only major differences are a small number of character-specific accents, like the ability to use a grenade item as a free action instead of a full one.
The bigger your crew gets, the more complicated everything gets. You can’t save loadouts or anything for characters so you will likely spend a lot of time on the menus to rearrange who has what and what class they are right now. The game also relies on a day cycle, so as you explore the overworld, you can only use each character on a mission once. When the team is all spent, you have to return to a base and spend the night to recharge for another day. It’s a nice idea, but it involves a lot of excess travel around the world map. Sometimes it’s not so bad and fits into the story and gameplay, but other times it slows everything down. I’ve had climatic missions that would play better back-to-back that are right next to each other on the map, but that is instead broken up by needing to go across the map to rest up and recharge the team. It’s a pace-killing decision that forces you to play less of the best parts of the game.
When you are in the water-filled world map, you ride around in a boat that slowly gets upgraded throughout the story so you can access more parts of the map. The boat doesn’t really do much, however, as you primarily get into relatively meaningless skirmishes with enemy boats in real time where you auto-fire weapons and move around to avoid fire in a way that reminded me of a sleepy version of Vampire Survivors.
The change of pace isn’t all bad, but it almost artificially lengthens the whole game, which clocks in around 25-30 hours to get to the end (roughly double the length of the first one). When I’m rolling with my team of bots planning my next set of actions to take down enemies efficiently while taking as little damage as possible, I’m having a great time. Even some of the moments where I’m bogged down by changing loadouts or traipsing through the water is enjoyable. But at times the balance feels off, no matter which of the many interchangeable difficulty settings you can choose from. I take solace with the fact that even amidst this, the character and world design is still clever and neat and the soundtrack from SteamWorld staple Steam Powered Giraffe is radical, matching the quasi-Western theme with good tunes sometimes popping with great vocals.
SteamWorld Heist 2 is in a way the game I’ve been wanting Thunderful to make since they released the first game in 2015. I’m so satisfied by all of the customization and options you have across the 10 different characters, even if I have some quibbles with loadouts and managing class changes. The turn-based tactics of it all are still so delightfully crunchy and awesome, featuring new objectives, unique bosses, and oodles of content. However the constant returns to the bar to rest and the strained simplicity of the water travel hold this back from being such a slam-dunk instant classic as its predecessor. This is a sequel that is bigger and better in a lot of respects, but is also weighed down by superfluous additions.
Nintendo surprisingly announced a brand new 2D Zelda game with The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, due out in September 2024. While a lot of folks definitely hoped for a Zelda game where you play as Zelda, I don’t think it was on many Bingo cards before the June 2024 Nintendo Direct. But here we are: living in a world where Nintendo revealed the latest entry in their legendary Zelda series just three months before its launch. And it looks great! The map looks like it’s a modified version of Link to the Past, but Link never had the power to create beds and moblins out of thin air before. And his inventory didn’t look like it was straight out of Breath of the Wild. And Link never had this kind of puzzle-solving freedom except for, well, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom.
Echoes of Wisdom is the latest in the modern evolution of the Zelda series that kicked off more than a decade ago. We don’t know exactly how the game will shake out, but early results seem to suggest that while this is a 2D Zelda game, it might share more in common with the design ethos behind Breath of the Wild. How did we get here? It started back in the waning days of the Wii.
Before we start, let’s get things clear: I’ve been delighted and mystified by the Legend of Zelda games from the moment I first came across the original gold NES cartridge sometime in the early 1990s. I didn’t totally leap into super fan status until the late ‘90s when I was swept off my feet by Ocarina of Time and then proceeded to tackle everything I hadn’t finished that came out beforehand. I appreciate the design of the first NES Zelda. I think Link to the Past rocks. I’m still waiting for the Zelda II remake because that game is very neat but also peppered with a lot of ‘80s jank. I just want to make it clear that I love the old dungeon-heavy gameplay flow that Link to the Past cemented as the franchise gold standard for two decades. Because in addition to loving that familiar pattern, I also love how Eiji Aonuma and the Zelda team at Nintendo realized they were hitting diminishing returns and decided to redefine what Zelda as a series was following the somewhat tepid response to the 2011 Wii release The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword. It was around that time that Aonuma and Nintendo started to rethink the conventions of Zelda. And in January 2013, Aonuma revealed his intentions to the world of Nintendo fans.
In 2013, Nintendo was in a bad place as a company, about to kick off the worst stretch in their decades of video games. The Wii U had launched with a thud in November 2012, capping off a speed-run of tanking the goodwill generated from the smashing success of the Wii and Nintendo DS. It’s worth noting the 3DS was doing okay at this point, salvaging a borderline catastrophic launch and eking out a nice niche for itself in video games, though nowhere near the same level as its dual-screened predecessor.
But the Wii U was the device that needed saving and on January 23, 2013, Nintendo presented a Wii U Direct focused primarily on Nintendo’s own games hosted by the then-president Satoru Iwata. It was a hail mary, announcing a number of Nintendo’s major projects that would take the rest of the Wii U’s short life to come out. A new 3D Mario game and a new Mario Kart were both announced with no other details, images, or news. Iwata also mentioned the existence of a new party game from the Wii Party team, a new Yoshi platformer, a Shin Megami Tensei and Fire Emblem crossover, and a new Monolith Soft game. Those last three games would eventually come out between 2015 and 2016 as Yoshi’s Woolly World, Tokyo Mirage Sessions #FE, and Xenoblade Chronicles X.
The biggest reveal, however, was a new Legend of Zelda game that would eventually become The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Eiji Aonuma stood in front of the blank white background and took to outlining the driving theme of development for the next Zelda game roughly a year after the last one shipped. He stated his mission very plainly: “Rethink the conventions of Zelda.” He highlighted those conventions as being things like completing dungeons in a certain order and playing solo. He then quickly diverted the audience’s attention from the fact that they had nothing else to say about their next major Zelda game (we would see a brief clip in June 2014 at E3) and announced Wind Waker HD for release later that year. Part of the reason for Wind Waker HD’s existence was stated plainly by Aonuma. It was going to take a while for Breath of the Wild, so here’s Wind Waker HD in the meantime. In retrospect, that also explains why Twilight Princess HD and Skyward Sword HD were both made. I guess if we want more old Zelda remakes, we need to cheer for new games to take a long time to make.
Looking at what Aonuma said more than 11 years ago, it’s wild how much he’s been a man of his word. Basically every new Zelda game - mainline or spinoff - has been an experiment in breaking conventions, to the point that what we once knew as Zelda isn’t really the same as it was 10 years ago. I’ve long been fascinated by how the Zelda games have evolved over the years and since the late 1990s, Eiji Aonuma has been heavily involved in the series, eventually becoming the series producer. While the first 15 years of 3D Zelda was executing on a consistent structure and style, each one built on the previous one in unique and interesting ways. Look at the battle system that started quite basic in Ocarina of Time and then featured the addition of parrying in Wind Waker, specific moves in Twilight Princess, and then the featured motion control combat in Skyward Sword. You can even look at something like the Command Melody in Wind Waker being streamlined into the Dominion Rod in Twilight Princess.
Looking at 2D Zelda, I’d argue that the series conventions have almost always been rethought. You have the leap from Zelda 1 to 2. The experiments of Link’s Awakening on Game Boy, the Oracle games duology, the multiplayer in Four Swords and Four Swords Adventures, and the touch screen controls in Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks. 2D Zelda has never stayed still, though recently it’s been dormant. And that’s what makes The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom’s upcoming Switch release so exciting and interesting.
But to get to Echoes of Wisdom, Aonuma and the Zelda team had more than a decade of deliberate, announced convention breaking to do. Let’s look at how we got from the relative low point the Zelda series stood at after Skyward Sword was released in 2011 to the world of 2024 where the Zelda franchise is assuredly one of Nintendo’s most exciting and successful, complete with a movie in the works.
When Aonuma spoke about his intentions to shake up Zelda in January 2013, he hid the fact their first statement on the matter was coming out later that year. It wasn’t Wind Waker HD. Instead it was The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds. Announced in April 2013, The game was billed as a Link to the Past sequel in Japan and shares roughly the same map and similar overarching structure as the influential Super Nintendo classic. Within that familiar structure, the back half of the game toyed with dungeon completion order.
Through the character Ravio, players can rent or buy weapons and items to let them access and complete dungeons in whatever order they want, primarily in the back half of the game. It was an interesting idea, but it does lead to the latter parts of A Link Between Worlds having a flat difficulty curve because, in theory, you need to account for that dungeon being someone’s first and last experience in that section of the game. But the spirit of Aonuma’s quest kicked off in earnest. The conventions of Zelda - which had been relatively the same since 1991 - were being rethought. However, we saw that happen every now and then in the past. Would A Link Between Worlds be the norm or would it be a one-off in the same vein as Majora’s Mask? The answer is easy, because why else would I be talking about the evolution of Zelda here if they didn’t keep reinventing it.
The multiplayer part would be the next concept that Aonuma and team would tackle across Hyrule Warriors and Tri Force Heroes. While Hyrule Warriors is a spin-off, it did allow players to play as more characters than Link, including Zelda, Impa, and even Ganondorf. Tri Force Heroes was very much in the same vein as Four Swords, but it added online multiplayer. And I guess you could think that making fashion a key part of a Zelda game was a rethinking of a convention as well. Hell, that fashion aspect is honestly a big part of Breath of the Wild too. While Tri Force Heroes wouldn’t go down as an all-time great, it still showed the spirit of continuous innovation to figure out what Zelda should be in the 21st century.
The true marker for if Aonuma’s plan of convention breaking would work was The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This is the bold new frontier he staked everything on beginning with that mention in January 2013. More than four years after he laid out his plans, Breath of the Wild launched on Wii U and more importantly, the brand new Nintendo Switch console. To say the rethink of what a Zelda game is in Breath of the Wild worked would be an understatement. It was an unqualified smashing success that cemented Zelda as a marquee franchise once again. After years in the wilderness, Zelda was in the same sales realm as Nintendo’s biggest movers. It even had the critical acclaim to back it up, notching numerous Game of the Year awards and going down as one of the best games of the decade.
Tears of the Kingdom would further the ideas of Breath of the Wild, emphasizing player freedom, exploration, and creativity. It’s wild that we went from Link exploring a barren Hyrule Field in Ocarina of Time to Link building a Death Star stapled together with green glue while he flies in the air on a fan-powered bicycle. It’s telling that after Tears of the Kingdom’s launch, Aonuma seems content to leave that style behind. We do not know what the future of 3D Zelda looks like, but the team seems like it’ll keep nimble in the future, making sure they don’t stay stagnant for too long.
In the time between Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, one of the bigger franchise releases was a remake of the Game Boy classic Link’s Awakening. The cute toy-like art style drove what was by most accounts a pretty standard remake. But after seeing Echoes of Wisdom carry forth the same art style, what that remake added stands out way more. The new mode Chamber Dungeon features the gravekeeper Dampe guiding Link through a cute little dungeon maker where you move around tiles to solve puzzles and make your own dungeons. It felt like an experiment from the Zelda team to try to see if a Mario Maker but for Zelda could work and while I would never rule anything out at this point, a Zelda Maker might not be in the cards. The idea of iterating off of that idea to get to a character creating items and enemies in the world to solve puzzles does seem within that same ballpark.
Nintendo historically makes gameplay mechanics before locking in the framework, and it seems likely that the Zelda team experimented with items and enemies being cloned in the world for combat and puzzles. The change in gameplay sounds like it fits Zelda herself more than Link, especially since focusing combat on generating echoes would involve Link not having a sword, which seems like a convention Aonuma might not want to break just yet. Ergo, we now have a Zelda game starring Zelda.
We have so far only seen a few scattered minutes of Echoes of Wisdom, but it’s an impressive opening salvo for a game we get to play very soon. Maybe it’s not fully elements of Breath of the Wild mapped to 2D. Maybe it does follow the traditional dungeon structure. Maybe it’s littered with Shrines on the Link to the Past map. Maybe you go to Lorule or the Dark World. Who knows! Aonuma has succeeded on his goal of changing up the series conventions because at this point, it’s way harder to guess what they’ll do next. The future of Hyrule is vast.
If I had to guess though, I think Aonuma knocks on the multiplayer door again. They’ve messed around in spinoffs, but the multiplayer aspect has been more on the fringes than on the main stage. I’m not going to say a multiplayer 3D Zelda is in the works, but there does seem to be room for Aonuma and the team to experiment. I will close this by sharing my dream for a battle royale on the Breath of the Wild map. Make the weapons breakable and add in all sorts of random Nintendo skins. Let’s go.
The NWR Connectivity Game Club returns with the cast each picking a game for the rest of the crew to play. Up first is The Outer Wilds as submitted by Melanie Zawodniak. We do our best to avoid spoilers for the first half of the episode, but we strongly recommend that if you have any interest in playing this game, you do so before listening to this episode.
Darkest Dungeon hit Nintendo Switch more than six years ago and it was an ideal way to play an incredible (but punishing) roguelike, dungeon-crawling, turn-based RPG. Developer Red Hook Studios then did the thing most teams do after a very successful game: they worked on a sequel. But the end result, aptly named Darkest Dungeon II, is not just a by-the-books sequel. The foundation is still familiar. The game still retains the dark Lovecraftian theme filled with depleting sanity and grungy visuals. The turn-based battle system is largely a refined version of what was in the first game. However the overall structure is a sizable swerve. Instead of hanging out in one specific town, attacking dungeons from that headquarters, you’re riding a stagecoach and going from inn to inn. Instead of staying in one place, Darkest Dungeon II becomes a road trip game and in the process offers a different experience from the original that, at least for me, is filled with a lot more variety.
Darkest Dungeon II is more focused on how you react to events as opposed to how you pre-plan for them. The first game relied more on the latter as you could specifically piece together your team and gear to be ready for the task ahead. The sequel is more unpredictable in its journey, requiring the player to think on their feet more often. Inns serve as checkpoints where you cash in the Candles of Hope you collected on your journey to incrementally upgrade your abilities and unlock new character classes. The game is still punishing, but even in failure, you typically make some amount of progress. It can become a war of attrition where you make slow steps to the endgame, but the nature of it is essentially even if you suck, you’re still going to unlock stuff.
Unlike the first game though, the game does not reach a plateau where everything is more or less across-the-board easier. The roguelike runs have a higher degree of variety, extending playthroughs beyond the natural end. They’re also perfectly engineered for handheld play on the Switch as it’s easy to hop in and do a run. It helps that the performance on Switch is stable and good, making the new stylish 3D models pop out (especially on an OLED screen). Runs themselves are more concentrated with much more individual choice. Going between inns features tons of branching paths, leading to dialogue choices that can impact the party affinity or a series of battles that will test your party’s composition. Every stop along the way adds to the story of your journey, giving you a ton of agency but also staying somewhat unpredictable.
That being said, the stagecoach travel segments are some of the weakest elements of the game. You can direct the coach left and right on the screen as it hurdles forward, but it slowly becomes more of a chore of happenstance than something that builds like the other aspects of the adventure. Even when the stagecoach is fully powered up, you can still go completely off the rails. Unlike the battles and dialogue choices, it feels more like bad luck than bad play.
That’s not to say the RNG gods won’t totally screw you over in battle, because that still happens often. I’ve had many quests get turned sideways by stumbling upon a den of enemies that wrecked me. Still, I can crawl at the wall to try to get out of it alive. When a wheel breaks off on the stagecoach, I just need to hope the dice rolls in my favor (even if there are some ways to compensate for it). The changes to the battle system seem to be made to not let you cheese it quite as much. You can’t have multiples of the same class and the overall party affinity matters a lot more. You need to make the right decisions along the way so that way your party works together better behind the scenes. Party composition matters so much, but what I’ve noticed as well is that you can make almost any quartet work in the field. Some are harder than others, but the tools are there to leverage character abilities in harmony to survive and thrive.
I did not closely follow the pre-release period of Darkest Dungeon II, but my expectations were just that it would be an enjoyable but derivative sequel. I’m thoroughly impressed that the reality of Darkest Dungeon II is much more ambitious than that. This is a game that does not supplant the original, but instead stands next to it, offering up an experience that is familiar but very different. I wish more sequels of this type took the relatively big swings that Darkest Dungeon II has made. The meticulous pre-planning prevalent in the first Darkest Dungeon is incredible, but so is greater focus on in-the-moment reactions in the sequel. Darkest Dungeon II is an impressive, well-crafted game that will absolutely pound you into the ground with death and detritus, but also will reward your strategy and perseverance.
Nintendo fans from the DS and 3DS era likely remember Level-5. The Japanese developer has been around since 1998, but they cemented their place on my radar the moment Professor Layton and the Curious Village came out on Nintendo DS in 2007. They followed that game up with countless sequels and also introduced the world to a variety of other games, including Yokai Watch, Fantasy Life, and Inazuma Eleven. They were quiet for a long time though, with most games barely even making it out in Japan. However, their first major release in the west in a long time can catch you up on a lot of their work over the past few years. Three years after its Japanese release, Megaton Musashi W: Wired hit Nintendo Switch earlier in 2024. It’s an extremely novel game that looks beautiful and is packed with content, though it leans a lot further into the story than I expected.
It takes a while before you can truly sink into some mech combat in Megaton Musashi W: Wired. First, you need to be introduced to its Matrix-esque premise. Playing as the volatile teen Yamato, you go about your seemingly idyllic normal life until the veil is torn down and the memories of the alien Draktors destroying humanity resurface. After being informed of the meager surviving government’s attempt to fight back the Draktors while letting the rest of humanity live in a simulation, Yamato hops behind the wheel of a Rogue, a giant mech that is used to fight back against the Draktors. The animation in cut scenes is fantastic and even moving around the world is pleasant thanks to the sharp art style that pops on the Switch, especially in handheld. The story is relatively long, but stays interesting throughout with plenty of twists and turns. Soon enough, maybe you’ll start feeling some sympathy for the aliens.
As I said, I was surprised by how much the story was the main draw here. I expected a lot more focus on fighting stuff with a giant mech. That is a key part of the game, but it’s also one of the weaker parts. First off, after how sharp the visuals are outside of battle, the graphics when you’re fighting look worse. Beyond that, the combat is generally just hack and slash. That’s not a death knell, but it makes that aspect of the game get stale over time. The difficulty does eventually ramp up, but it takes quite a while for it to be more engaging. You can fiddle with customizing your mech as well with an overwhelming amount of options. A lot of it feels superfluous, though. It’s hard to feel the minute differences between weapons when a lot of the combat is just working your way through hordes of foes. That all being said, it’s still fun to move around and fight robots in the same way it’s enjoyable to romp through an arcade beat-’em-up.
I walked away from Megaton Musashi W: Wired feeling very optimistic for the forthcoming onslaught of Level-5 games due out in the near future, but it was also a reminder of their strengths and weaknesses. The presentation is incredible, complete with a compelling story and charming characters. The action-oriented parts lag behind, though. The mech battling is totally fine hack-and-slash fun, but it rarely exceeds that. If you’re looking for a fun mechs-vs.aliens narrative to enjoy on your Switch, Megaton Musashi W: Wired absolutely rocks. But if you’re here solely for robot combat, you’re best looking elsewhere.
Monster Hunter Stories was a novel spinoff to Capcom’s Monster Hunter series when it hit Nintendo 3DS in 2016 (2017 outside of Japan), though it came out near the end of the console’s lifespan. Ironically, the first Stories is being ported to Nintendo Switch near the end of that console’s life, but it’s in a vastly different place for Monster Hunter and Nintendo in the west. Monster Hunter World’s 2018 release helped to make the franchise more prominent than ever, spawning more support on Switch in the form of Monster Hunter Rise and Monster Hunter Stories 2. Now anyone curious about the Stories sub-series 3DS origins can check it out in this fine port.
Broadly, this is Pokemon by way of Monster Hunter. It’s not quite 1:1 with Pokemon’s setup, but the basics are that it’s a monster-collecting RPG where you find and raise your own crew of Monsties to uncover the mystery behind the blight that is poisoning the world. The story is told well, often feeling like a Saturday morning cartoon in a good way. How it filters the Pokemon hook through the Monster Hunter lens in how it’s structured. Much like how you accept quests in mainline Monster Hunter games, you’re doing a lot of that here. Some of them devolve into fetch quests, but they’re always good reasons to venture out into the world and explore more of the various areas.
The monster variety isn’t quite as vibrant as Pokemon, as the Monstie count here is only in the mid-double-digits, but it’s soundly good enough. What was the laggard part of the game back in 2017 still remains that same part here: the battle system. It’s serviceable but it’s heavily built on a rock/paper/scissors mechanic that bounces between random and stale. More complexities are added over time, especially as your Monstie lineup deepens and your weapon selection increases, but the same basic strategies rule the day. Counter the enemy character’s primary attack type and go nuts. I appreciate you can speed up the battles so some of the potential monotony is lessened, but this is the crucial part of the game that drags it down, especially since some of the technical triumphs of the 3DS game are rendered moot by the port. Though for as much as I - someone who has played these types of games for multiple decades - am let down by the battle system, I do think it’s a nice level of depth for kids. The lower entry level of the battle system helps to make it a good entry level RPG in a way that I don’t think most modern Pokemon games do a great job of.
I don’t mean this negatively as much as I mean it matter-of-factly: this Switch version of a 3DS game indeed does look like it was a 3DS game. This was a good-looking 3DS game for its time and while the overall art design is still strong, it still very much looks like it used to be a handheld game. It’s felt most prominently in the open world areas that are very sparse. As long as you know what you’re getting into, the visuals aren’t a big detractor, especially because otherwise the game runs fine aside from some load times here and there. It also helps that this isn’t being launched at full price.
The game itself is more or less unchanged from the original 3DS release (more than likely this is an adaptation of the 2018 iOS/Android port). The biggest addition is fully voiced English and Japanese dialogue, so you can switch to your preference. A Museum Mode with concept art and music is also brand new. This does come with all of the post-launch content added to the original release in Japan, including a wealth of new monsters and even postgame challenges. If you still have Monster Hunter amiibo, you can also break them out here as well to unlock what you could in the original. The online multiplayer battles are also available here, though go back up to my thoughts about the battle system and you can see that my interest in them is not high. I’m happy they exist though and my experiences with them were that it ran fine.
As someone who enjoyed Monster Hunter Stories when it came out on 3DS seven years ago, I’m happy it has a new home on Switch, even if it’s not a full remake. It’s well worth diving into if you missed it the first time around, especially since the relative simplicity makes it a decent entrypoint for a younger audience into this world and genre (especially since it has so much voice acting). If you are looking for something more complex, you can always try Monster Hunter Stories 2 or just go on hunts in one of the many other available Monster Hunters.
While John and Neal take a break from weekly Connectivity episodes, we've decided to pivot to a new format inspired by our popular Game Club episodes. Starting in July we'll be posting monthly (hopefully) episodes of a brand new Game Club. But this time, rather than basing games around a specific franchise, each member of the cast will choose a game to make everyone else play through.
We'll be recording our first episode based on Melanie's pick, Outer Wilds in mid July. Pick up the game on your platform of Choice and play along with us!
The last decade of SaGa ports and remakes have been illuminating in the west, shining a bright light on a series that has never been at the top of the list of Square Enix’s famed franchises. The last brand new entry in the SaGa series predates the Switch (the Japan-only 2016 Vita release SaGa Scarlet Grace) and now, eight years later, comes SaGa Emerald Beyond - the first brand new SaGa game on Switch after more than a half dozen other re-releases on the system. Unfortunately, the wait might not have been worth it because Emerald Beyond is an uneven, oft boring game buoyed by a solid combat system.
Much like any entry in the series this century, Emerald Beyond features a nonlinear structure where player choice guides you in different directions for each story. You pick between five different characters, ranging from aspiring witch Ameya Aisling to the singing robot Diva No. 5, and then choose between a few different options to explore different worlds leading to an open-ended narrative conclusion that then encourages you to play with a different character or replay one of the characters you have already completed. In my experience, each playthrough took around five hours (give or take), but the deeper I got into each replay, the more bored I became. The playthroughs do build up an overarching story and are filled with enough different areas to visit and things to do that aren’t just identical runs, but the overlap in gameplay and presentation start to blur all the worlds together, turning it into a veritable soup of an RPG quest.
The character variety is wacky, as in addition to the aforementioned teen witch and singing robot, you also have a vampire king, a magical puppeteer, and a pair of rookie cops. To be able to go from vampire battles to cops investigating a murder should be thrilling, but in execution, it’s just bland. A lot of this comes from the flat presentation, both in how the 3D characters are presented in the 2D overworld but also in the dialogue itself. Everything is overwrought and overlong, a far cry from the strong localization in SaGa Scarlet Grace that was one of my favorite aspects of the game. Sadly, the dialogue in Emerald Beyond unfolds with an almost eerily logical precision, lacking the natural hesitations of human conversation. Also would it kill someone to explain to the Western audience what a kugutsu is (for the record they’re easily summed up as demon puppets, which is maybe what they could have been called in game or even just described as in game).
While Emerald Beyond boasts 17 different worlds to explore and plot threads that connect together in the background, the moment-to-moment gameplay in each world is very similar. You enter a new area, press a button to automatically scan for points of interest, pick between one of a few points of interest, sit through slow, long dialogue, and occasionally fight a battle. Rinse and repeat. One time I collected logs found by wandering the overworld. Another time I looked for cats. All of it is just point-to-point wandering around flat areas. Also, every now and then you have to solve a simple tangram puzzle. That’s basically the game.
Some of that setup is similar to how Scarlet Grace operated, but it’s streamlined to the point of obsolescence. Scarlet Grace had towns and blacksmiths to break up the flow. In Emerald Beyond, you just upgrade your weapons through the main menu. This simplifies the process but also makes it so the game is narrow-minded. A lot of my complaints about past SaGa games are that they can be too inscrutable for their own good, but after playing Emerald Beyond, I’m coming to the realization that these games are based on layers of inscrutability. Making it easier to understand alters the alchemy that makes these games fun and interesting.
All that being said, the combat’s enjoyable. The turn-based battles are built off of the bones of Scarlet Grace’s very good combat system with a lot of smart tweaks that make it a little more friendly, but still adequately inscrutable as like past games, there are no experience points and depending on your character’s race, you earn new abilities semi-randomly. As far as the new tweaks, characters can equip two different weapon types now, combos are easier to pull off, and different character types make for a lot more party-building variety. The combat quite frankly saved this game for me.
It’s a shame that SaGa Emerald Beyond doesn’t stick the landing outside of the enjoyable turn-based combat because it’s still a fascinating and distinct series. I wish I was more engaged in the story, because the potential of bouncing between 17 worlds and criss-crossing replayed stories sounds cool. It just doesn’t coalesce into something all that fun. Maybe the SaGa series is something best left to ports and remakes.
Having stumbled upon the Raw Thrills-developed Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game a few times, I was looking forward to the home release of the game in the form of TMNT: Wrath of the Mutants. The original 2017 release is a decently enjoyable modern arcade game that does not rival the Konami classics but is a fine pastiche. On Nintendo Switch, removed from the colorful arcade cabinet you potentially found in a bowling alley or bar, that enjoyment starts to fade away.
The best part of Wrath of the Mutants is the source material, pulling from the extremely good 2012 TMNT cartoon, featuring the great voice cast of Rob Paulsen, Seth Green, Sean Astin, and Greg Cipes as the title characters. All of the levels, including the new ones added to the Switch version, pull from the cartoon show’s entire run, complete with some winks and nods to older versions of the characters. The Switch version runs fine but doesn’t look that great overall, especially in handheld mode. While I personally like the look of the show it’s based on, I don’t think that art style translates well to this type of video game.
Levels are longer than you expect, complete with multiple stages, mid-bosses, and a final boss. The four playable characters are most separated by their available Turtle Power, which is a bonus move that can be pulled off when a meter is charged. Mikey uses his nunchucks to hit enemies with pizza slices, Donnie electrocutes baddies, Leo spins in a sword tornado, and Raph gets angry and makes fire appear. You also have assist characters, such as Leatherhead and Metalhead, that you can occasionally get to drop in and help out battling the hordes.
In a world where the Switch is filthy with TMNT arcade games across the Cowabunga Collection and Shredder’s Revenge, Wrath of the Mutants is a distant third place. It’s fine in the sense that if you get three buddies to play through it with you, you’ll probably have a good time. But beyond that camaraderie, this is a middling port of an okay game.
Typically when I play Metroidvanias, I’m not focusing on the story. I love Metroid and I have geeked out over Chozo lore, but at the end of the day, as long as I’ve got some atmosphere amidst the labyrinths, I’m good to go. The strength of Tales of Kenzera: Zau is in its story, which is intertwined through the gameplay, told in a manner that makes the game better by its emotional impact. The quasi-abstract story of loss and grief is the foundation that the tight platforming, great sense of movement, and enjoyable combat funnels all build from. In the process, developer Surgent Studios has made one of the best games of its type in recent memory.
The majority of the game focuses on a young shaman named Zau who recently lost his father. He goes to Kalunga, the God of Death, to try to revive his dad, which takes him on a quest throughout the land of Kenzera to defeat the three great spirits. Each spirit has its parable about death and loss, delivering powerful emotional beats regularly. I did not expect to be near tears during boss fights during this game. While the story is a focus, it doesn’t interrupt gameplay, with most of the cut scenes told economically on the back of incredible writing. Zau also has recurring dialogue with Kalunga while he’s running and jumping around the world.
The platforming and action that accompanies the story is mostly fantastic, as Zau’s maneuverability starts great and gets even better as you unlock more abilities. The combination of a double jump, wall jump, and dash makes platforming quick and fun in an almost rhythmic pattern. While the game holds secret paths and unlockables, it’s largely straightforward for the duration of the plot. Even still, I had a good time jumping around areas I’ve already gone through.
The combat is simple at a glance but has a variety of layers, some of which can be low-key cheesed during certain combat situations. Zau has a sun mask and a moon mask that can be swapped between at will. The sun mask is more aggressive and melee-focused, offering light combos and when you unlock it, a special powerful ranged attack. The moon mask is more focused on defense, with an early stun add-on power as well as a basic ranged attack. Swapping between the two strategically is where the combat starts to take off. It feels great to lay out a mask-swapping plan and execute it to perfection. The only real issue with the combat is the few stretches of too many kill rooms in close proximity. They both slow the momentum down and show the cracks of the combat.
Visually, the art style is overall expressive and pleasant, running well enough on Switch. It's not the ideal place to play Tales of Kenzera, but if you just have access to Switch, it's good enough to experience the greatness this game has to offer. The game has auto-save, so it removes any need for save rooms. The checkpointing is mostly good, though it is hard to find out where the game will leave you when you quit the game. My biggest issue with the checkpointing is when there is a reaction-based platforming challenge. Some of those are side challenges, so the fact they’re meant to be difficult doesn’t bother me there, but when those are in the main story, I felt like I was being punished for not having preternatural knowledge of what was coming next. Lengthy trial-and-error segments were the lowest point of Tales of Kenzera.
Thankfully that low point is the outlier, but this is still overall a stellar video game. Lasting in the ballpark of 8-10 hours, Tales of Kenzera is a well-paced Metroidvania that is a blast to play, featuring novel unlockable abilities, a good challenge, and most of all, an incredible story. Just be ready to shed a tear or two, especially if you’re in my shoes of being a parent to a young kid because hoo boy - that whole father/son element is played to perfection. The story is a true triumph and the gameplay supports it perfectly.
Truth be told, there isn't a lot I can tell you specifically about Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. I've played a few hours of the game on my Steam Deck, where it's been enchanting and mesmerizing. The developer Simogo previously released the glorious music masterpiece Sayonara Wild Hearts on Switch in 2019, with their previous notable Nintendo appearance before then being the now-lost-media Wii U version of Year Walk. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes has been something I've wanted to spend time with since it was announced because Simogo doesn't miss.
So far so good. Lorelei and the Laser Eyes lives up to the hype. It's baffling at times, demanding your full attention and if you want to go full hog into it, a place to take notes. You control a woman who begins outside of a European hotel trying to solve a mystery. That mystery sometimes seems straightforward but it's anything but. You have to explore the areas around you to find whatever details you can muster to piece together the primary mystery and more, as everything is not as seemingly straightforward. It's daunting and I was especially tickled by Simogo's commentary in a press letter where the team admitted that they don't expect every player to finish it. That admission might seem bizarre, but it's refreshing to hear a developer say that in a world where most statistics say that the majority of players don't finish games.
The embargo prohibits me from going into too many details, so pardon if a focus on my feelings in a vague manner feels awkward. I haven't felt this way about a game since Fez, which was the last game where I primarily played it with a notebook next to me. The actual mechanics aren't comparable to the platforming in Fez, but the weird meta background elements have a lot in common with Lorelei. The amount of a-ha moments I've had in the early goings have been incredibly rewarding, connecting the arcane dots together and figuring out smaller solutions as part of the greater whole. I'm looking forward to diving deeper into this beguiling locale. Who knows if I'll buck Simogo's predictions and finish this game, but regardless I expect to be satisfied and entranced.
Now you all can feel my feelings and take the challenge of seeing if you can actually figure this game out as the release date is confirmed to be May 16. Get your pen and paper ready to figure out the mysterious machinations of Lorelei and the Laser Eyes.
Game developer Jupiter has been putting out consistently good Picross games for ages across the 3DS and Switch. We’re talking about thousands of Picross puzzles from Jupiter available just on Switch, split between more than a dozen releases. Along the way, they’ve made a few experiments with the style, whether it was the anime tie-in Picross: Lord of the Nazarick or the fast-paced Picross X. Those didn’t really click with me in the same way the Picross S series does, but now, with their latest release Picross Logiart Grimoire, I believe Jupiter has found an exciting new aesthetic and presentation for Picross games.
Logiart Grimoire, which debuted on Steam in Early Access in 2023 (and was fueled by a Kickstarter campaign), takes the rock solid foundation of Jupiter’s other games and adds a novel new look and a pleasant change-of-pace puzzling way to unlock new nonograms. You play as Emil, a magician who is trying to restore the titular grimoire. Naturally you do that by solving boatloads of nonogram puzzles.
While like their recent games, you can skip basic tutorials, the structure here does not let you just skip to the high-level 20x20 puzzles right away. You have to follow the progression, knock out some easy 5x5 puzzles and level up your hero to gain more access to the pages of the grimoire. The salve for that for high-level Picross players is that there are numerous bonus puzzles (mostly created from Kickstarter backer requests) that are generally harder and accessible right away; when you do get deeper into the game, there are 40x30-size puzzles to feast on. The best thing I can say about the pace and flow is that the Switch version is my second time playing Logiart Grimoire (also played the Steam version) and I was relatively unbothered by the slower start, mostly due to the new presentation and the neat way you unlock puzzles.
Specifically, unlocking different puzzles requires you to use existing solved puzzles to form new ones. Through various different chapters in the book, you will get a prompt, like “It is collected from the ground and water is added to mold and shape it,” with the bolded words highlighted, cluing you in that those are the two items you need to fuse to make the puzzle playable. In the case of that puzzle, I selected soil and water from my Primordial puzzle list and selected those to fuse. It gets more complex from there as you unlock more items and sometimes need to fuse more than two items for success. It’s just enough of a brain teaser to break up the Picross play and keep everything more fresh. It can get overwhelming at times, but you level up by completing puzzles, which slowly unlocks more puzzles to find and fuse. It’s well paced in that regard.
Picross Logiart Grimoire is not a full-on replacement for Jupiter’s past Picross S games, but it’s a wonderful addition to their library. If you’ve been put off by the presentation of Picross S, this might be the entry to bring you back to Jupiter’s delightful world of nonogram magic. If you’re like me, a loyal soldier who shows up for every single one of these Picross games no matter what, the new presentation might seem like it’s just the same old with a new wizard hat, but this is one of the best Picross games that Jupiter has put out, largely because it feels new and has a nice sense of progression.
Let’s! Revolution! is an exclamatory game that I hadn’t heard about until its Switch announcement, but it’s a very well regarded roguelike puzzle game that first debuted on PC in 2023. The basics are relatively straightforward in that it’s a gorgeously animated spin on Minesweeper with a lot of nuance and variety. The mechanics get convoluted in spots, but more often than not, this is a unique, brain-twisting game that you can get lost in for hours.
The art and animation are still the highlight though, which makes sense considering the game comes from BUCK, an animation studio that has been around for 20 years and has worked on numerous advertising and creative projects most notably and recently the opening sequence for Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse. Sometimes it’s just fun to see the way your player character interacts with the gridded environment or the way an enemy bounces around idly.
Though this is a video game so the visuals can only take you so far. The gameplay puts you in control of a character in a gridded environment that is primarily obscured. You leap from square to square trying to defeat enemies, find items and upgrades, and discover the villainous king. Enemies will only be present on a road, and if you’re not on a road, the amount of roads touching your square will be represented by a number on your square. Hence, the Minesweeper of it all as the roads are akin to the bombs in that classic. But not every road will be dangerous, which gives the whole thing a nice push and pull as you occasionally risk it by jumping into the unknown.
With the Minesweeper inspiration, it was sometimes frustrating that there wasn’t the pure logic reasoning present in that game. I felt too often that I was railroaded into making a blind decision. That does make the game more challenging and by virtue of that a little more chaotic and random. How you build up your character through items and upgrades can mitigate that randomness. I’d have some runs where I’d have a nigh-unbeatable set of skills and others where I was hanging on for dear life. Numerous character classes and abilities that you unlock over time give you a ton of variety to experiment with, consistently keeping the game evolving and changing. I appreciate how many different styles you get to experience, but some are more fun than others. I vastly prefer the more aggressive characters compared to the ones reliant on stealth, especially as some obnoxious enemy types make stealth a real pain in the butt.
If you’re looking for a fresh roguelike game with thoughtful puzzle stylings, Let’s! Revolution! is an excellent game to dive into. Even in the moments playing a character class I didn’t enjoy as much, I still had a good time, especially since most runs are far less than an hour. This game seems to recognize its kitchen sink gameplay concept approach and lets you fiddle with whatever aspects work best for you. Here’s hoping BUCK doesn’t just stick to animation in the future because their game design is rather intriguing.
Picross Logiart Grimoire, the latest game from Picross S developers Jupiter, is coming to Nintendo Switch on April 18.
The game, one of Jupiter's first games also released on PC, launched into Early Access on Steam in September 2023 and was released into 1.0 this past March. On Switch, it will release for $19.99.
Including 280 puzzles, the new twist is that in addition to all the nonogram puzzle solving, you also combine different items to create new puzzles. The aesthetics are also different than the normal sanitized Picross S look as it takes on the look of a magical book.
Alongside the launch, all Jupiter-published Switch Picross games will be 35% off until April 24.
Pepper Grinder is a game that fits into that special category of Nintendo console indie where it heavily evokes an old Nintendo game, except for once it isn’t just Metroid or Mario. This time it’s Drill Dozer, a Game Freak-developed Game Boy Advance game, but while that serves as a good shorthand for Pepper Grinder’s setup, the games themselves largely just share drills and a 2D perspective in common. Pepper Grinder is a level-based side-scroller where you dance across the screen driving your drill through the ground in enemies in a borderline balletic fashion.
Pepper Grinder makes it easy to sink into, as you dig your drill into the ground and wipe out enemies, collect coins, and seek out special pirate coins nestled in every level. While the overall experience only lasts a few hours, the game is consistently inventive, tossing out new twists and additions to the drilling gameplay, usually in the form of attaching your drill to a vehicle or item. Romping through the main path across four worlds is relatively straightforward, but even more fun can be had engaging in some speedrunning or scouring for the pirate coins in levels. Those special coins can unlock other levels that are usually a little harder than the norm.
The special sauce of Pepper Grinder is the style. Visuals and music combine into a distinctive look that gels with the gameplay perfectly. The pixel art is a little grungy and squiggly in a way that makes the drill movement look as good as it feels. Movement is joyful, especially as you start to make use of boosts and grapples and all sorts of mechanical embellishments.
While no difficulty setting exists, there’s enough challenge in here to not be a breeze, but enough help if you’re having trouble. Some of the bosses are quite challenging, but if you get stuck, you can use in-game currency to buy more health points. Even still, the bosses generally fall into the style of you have to avoid them for a while and wait for a very small opening to attack them. Sometimes that opening isn’t clear at first and you might have to wait for a lot of the same attack patterns to happen before you know what to do. It’s just personally not my favorite kind of boss fight style. Additionally, I ran into a bothersome glitch that made the final boss a bear, but to the developer’s credit, a fix is on the way (out on Steam but due to the patch pipeline on Switch, it isn’t live as of writing though it should be live around launch).
If you’re into unique and creative takes on platforming, Pepper Grinder is well worth jumping (or rather, drilling) into. I’m not the biggest fan of the boss fights (especially the one that currently glitches out), but overall, this is a good grind from start to finish. I’d love to see more takes on drill-based platforming along these lines, though the tight package developer Ahr Ech has put together is a concentrated blast of fun.
Even after three years, it’s jarring seeing the PlayStation branding appear on Nintendo Switch courtesy of Sony San Diego’s long-running MLB The Show series. Back in 2022 when The Show first hit Switch, it was an impressive port, taking a deep, full-featured simulation baseball game and making it run well on Switch complete with crossplay on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X. This is still an impressive port, but the sheen is starting to wear off as the Switch marches into its final days and some of the new content on The Show doesn’t look as nice downgraded to run on decade-old tech.
In spite of that, MLB The Show is still an incredible baseball game, especially in handheld mode. The gameplay on the field remains virtually unchanged, with some finetuning here and there. Hitting and pitching are still extremely nuanced and well balanced, with an array of smart options and variety. This year I got more into the PCI zone hitting option, which was added a few years ago. It’s a great embellishment on the classic timing-based swinging methods in baseball games, and I don’t know if I’ll ever go back at this point. Fielding feels a little snappier, likely thanks to the new animations added throughout the game.
In general, when the ball is pitched or hit into the field, The Show is great. It’s when you’re not doing that the Switch version starts shambling around. Load times were present before, but now it’s impacted my pace of play more often. That’s likely not being helped by the launch weekend server issues, but no matter what the true cause is, the menus in the game feel far more sluggish this year. Server issues are not guaranteed to level out, but the first days have been a debacle as I have regularly gotten bounced from online modes. Thankfully, the game seems to be smart about when it auto-saves because I have lost little meaningful progress when the servers crash. However, on top of the server problems, I just straight up had multiple game crashes in general, force-closing the game and making me restart from the Switch menu. Some of this could be bad luck since I’ve never had this happen in the past entries in the series, but it’s been sadly more frequent in MLB The Show 24.
Even as I wrestled with technical shortcomings, I still spent a lot of time in the Diamond Dynasty mode, which is this game’s card-based Ultimate Team-esque mode. Like recent outings, you do not need to spend much real money to field a competitive squad in the mode. You are granted a decent amount of packs at the start and there are easy ways to accumulate a decent roster. Early on, my outfield had Roberto Clemente, Mickey Mantle, and Ken Griffey Jr; that’s an all-timer of an outfield. Diamond Dynasty didn’t get too many changes this year, with most of them being tweaks to the larger changes made last season.
The mode that seemingly got the most love this year was the Road to the Show mode, the create-a-player story where you take your player from the minors to the pros. The most noteworthy and awesome addition is that you can create a female player and take her on a history-making quest from the MLB Draft to the pros. I love the concept, but in execution, the narrative is told in a stale format regularly interrupted by some of the most compressed video of faux MLB Network sets I’ve ever seen. So much of this threadbare plot is told via clumsy text messages between your player and her friend or agent as you watch your created heroine awkwardly sit in a clubhouse. It’s a shame because the idea is so cool. You can see the kernels of an incredible mode in Road to the Show, but it’s sadly not ready for the big leagues, at least on Switch.
On the flipside, the Storylines section from last year returns with more fascinating history from the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. 10 players get a feature this year, with four available at launch, including legendary home-run hitter Hank Aaron and the first professional woman player Toni Stone. The rest will be released throughout the year. Similarly, Yankee legend Derek Jeter gets his own Storyline as well. At launch, the first few seasons of his lengthy career are covered, which include the majority of his World Series wins. The rest of his career will be covered in content drops throughout the year as well. Storylines are such an incredible way to present sports history in an interactive and engaging manner. I hope The Show keeps adding to this in the form of long ago and recent history. These are so clever and polished that it makes the failing of the narrative in the Road to the Show mode stand out even more.
I remain happy that MLB The Show 24 is on Switch since it brings a quality simulation baseball game with current rosters to a Nintendo platform, something that has not been the norm in the past 20 years. While the Switch version is showing its technical limitations and age, it’s still a fine way to play through the bountiful content spread across the game. Optimally it’s best played in handheld, but no matter how you play it, the gameplay is rock solid. Additionally, the way it treats baseball history with the Storylines mode is incredible. Now if only the video wasn’t so compressed and I didn’t have to worry about the game or server crashing at any point.
John and Neal return after a month off with a new, somehow even less structured, podcast format. Nintendo has announced release dates for all of their confirmed 2024 games and they cut off in June. Nintendo has something unanounced happening this fall. Could it be Metroid? Mario Party? Hyrule Warriors?
The Legend of Legacy first came out in the west nearly a decade ago on 3DS courtesy of publisher Atlus. I reviewed it back then and while the difficulty spikes and minimalist story dragged it down, I walked away with positive memories of my time with the FuRyu-developed RPG. Revisiting it on Switch in the upgraded port published by NIS America–dubbed The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered–rekindles those fond memories. With the recent SaGa series explosion from Square Enix, the novelty of The Legend of Legacy’s combat system is less impactful, but it’s still an enchanting RPG in spite of the same threadbare story and difficulty spikes.
The focus of the adventure is more on exploration as opposed to combat, as after you pick one of the seven playable characters you set out to explore the various regions on the island of Avalon. Roaming around each area and filling out the map is the goal, with various battles and bosses along the way. The combat is heavily inspired by the SaGa series as your characters don’t traditionally level up with experience points. Instead, the more you use certain abilities, the more the stats related to them improve and you randomly unlock more abilities tied to that weapon or item. It’s relatively straightforward and approachable, but the element of RNG can make certain boss fights or even stronger regular enemy fights frustrating.
The visuals and music make those obstacles more enjoyable though. The soundtrack from Masashi Hamauzu (who most recently worked on the soundtrack for Final Fantasy VII Rebirth) is incredible, made better by not being output on 3DS speakers. The visuals also translated better to Switch than I expected, looking especially stylish on the handheld screen.
But if you already played this game on 3DS, there isn’t much in the way of new features in this release. Some quality of life features make this obtuse game a little more manageable, essentially including instruction manual-esque detail in menus. The way they changed the StreetPass trading game to work without the notable 3DS feature is cute, even if it just makes it a simple side thing where you send off a character to get items as opposed to the fun real-world traveling aspect of StreetPass in the original.
The Legend of Legacy HD Remastered is a solid port of an interesting but flawed game. If you want to explore some dungeon-like areas, rock some SaGa-like combat, and listen to some beautiful music, then it’s worth journeying through Avalon. Otherwise, this remains a game I think is neat but wouldn’t necessarily emphatically recommend to most aside from the specific group I just described.
Roguelikes are a dime a dozen in video games these days, but that wasn’t always the case. A handful of games drove the popularity of the style more than a decade ago, but I remember my first wondrous experience was with Spelunky when it came to Xbox 360 in 2012. I was shocked to see that Shiren the Wanderer - Japan’s preeminent ‘90s Rogue-inspired series - hadn’t had a new entry designed since the modern day roguelike explosion, as Shiren 5 (subtitled in the West as The Tower of Fortune and the Dice of Fate) came out initially in 2010, though with an upgraded Switch release in 2020. That game is great, but the sixth and latest entry in the nearly 30-year-old series, dubbed Shiren the Wanderer: The Mystery Dungeon of Serpentcoil Island, is an even bigger step forward, improving on some novel online features and expanding the fun and complexity of the awesome and oft punishing franchise.
The visuals are the most apparent change in Shiren 6, as the franchise sheds its pixel art roots for 3D visuals. I was hesitant at first, but the implementation of the new art style fits the series wonderfully. Characters and enemies are expressive and the game overall looks sharp on the Nintendo Switch. I wouldn’t call the 3D visuals head and shoulders better than 2D pixel art, but it ultimately feels closer to six of one, half-dozen of another when it comes down to it.
The gameplay is refined but generally unchanged from the Mystery Dungeon style. Through a novel narrative conceit where the titular wanderer is destroyed by the eventual final boss and awakens back in the starting town with no memory, Shiren sets off to solve the mystery dungeon of Serpentcoil Island. Floors of the randomly generated dungeon are all grid-based and each move or action you make is a turn. When you take a turn, other enemies and NPCs across the floor also take an action. The emphasis is on thoughtful strategy, making use of the items and scrolls you find to navigate traps and defeat increasingly difficult hordes of enemies. When you lose all your hit points, you start back at the first floor with none of your items or gear.
However, that doesn’t mean there isn’t progression. You can uncover alternate paths and explore different side quests as you likely fail numerous runs. The progression isn’t found in level-ups or gear, but in knowledge. You’ll learn the weaknesses of different enemies and the effectiveness of different items. You’ll learn when to get the hell out of a dungeon and when you can hang back and pick off foes. While I sometimes wished there was an easier difficulty setting, I had a blast trying to make use of my inventory to stay alive in the deadly mystery dungeon.
When you do inevitably die, you can make use of the rescue system. Originally introduced back in Shiren the Wanderer on Wii, the rescue system is an ingenious online component where, when you fail, you can request a rescue from an online player. When you attempt rescues online, you also earn Aid Points, which can be used to make your future rescues easier, letting you start at a higher level or with more health. Even if you’re offline, you can rescue yourself (though you don’t get Aid Points that way). During the review period, I primarily rescued myself, which was a fun and unique challenge in and of itself. While you can only be rescued three times over the course of a run, it’s a nice option to have for when you get pantsed deep into the dungeon.
Rescue isn’t the only neat online feature. You can also let other players try your current run while using Parallel Play, which creates a save point mid-dungeon that you can share with others to see who can do the best. That, combined with some of the stream-friendly UI options, makes Shiren more an online experience than I ever would have expected when I was getting my ass kicked by punishing dungeons back in the 2000s.
Even if you’re not dabbling in the worldwide mystery dungeon web, Shiren 6 is still a beefy game that holds a wealth of secrets. The main dungeon is only 30 floors, but by progressing through the game, you can unlock various shortcuts and side dungeons that usually come with a greater challenge and an even greater reward. This is a flavor of game that might not be for everyone, but if you’re looking for a thoughtful, challenging game that constantly evolves and builds, Shiren’s journey to the mysterious Serpentcoil Island might be perfect for you.
When the 3DS eShop shut down in 2023, a wealth of games were no longer easily and legally accessible. Some of the games that were lost to time were developer Jupiter’s dozen or so Picross games only available via download. While the likes of Pokemon Picross and My Nintendo Picross: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess are potentially lost to time, the nine entries in the Picross e series are getting new life on Nintendo Switch. Unless you recently replayed the Picross e games or have a photographic memory, these puzzles are basically brand new Picross puzzles to play for the first time or revisit after a decade. And unless you imported Picross e9, this is the first time that game will be playable outside of Japan.
The way these are being sold is interesting, however. The package is dubbed Picross S+ and you can buy it for $4.99 (or equivalent regional pricing). With that, you can play through the 300 puzzles of Picross e, split between regular Picross and the tweaked Mega Picross. All of the recent niceties added to the Picross S series are present here, including button or touch control options. Once you spend the initial $4.99, you can buy Picross e2 through e9 as a la carte DLC for $4.99 each. If you don’t want to break out your calculator, that means you would have to spend upwards of $44.91 to buy the content of all nine games, which amounts to 1,350 Picross puzzles and 565 Clip Picross puzzles. That’s a solid dollar-to-puzzle ratio, comparable with Jupiter’s other Picross S releases. In addition to all of the puzzles from the Picross e games, bonus puzzles are unlocked as you buy DLC, adding another 70 puzzles.
Much like the last several entries in the Picross S series on Switch, Picross S+ isn’t reinventing the wheel, but if you are hankering for more Picross, this is a great value and an excellent package. Jupiter remains the king of Picross, sitting on a throne filled with puzzles and a user interface that is evocative of the Switch’s home menu: straight to the point with a hint of whimsy.
Eight years ago, Pocket Card Jockey was released on 3DS outside of Japan, and it rocked my face off. Sincerely, Pocket Card Jockey is one of my favorite 3DS games ever, and I consider the 3DS one of my favorite systems ever. So when developer Game Freak (best known for Pokémon games and underrated Switch game Little Town Hero) brought back Pocket Card Jockey in an upgraded form, I was ecstatic. A year after its Apple Arcade debut, Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On is now on Nintendo Switch, carrying over the glory of the 3DS original with a handful of smart tweaks and a middling button control option.
The hook and progression of Pocket Card Jockey remains relatively unchanged from the 3DS game. You play as a horse jockey who isn’t very good at racing, but after being killed by a horse, you’re brought back to life and are now good at horse racing thanks to your ability to play a solitaire card game. The presentation echoes the insanity of the setup, with colorful cartoon characters and a rollicking soundtrack. The writing is charming, poking fun at the preposterous combination while staying engaging and amusing throughout with an evolving cast of quirky characters.
Races play out alternating between rounds of golf solitaire and positioning your horse on the track. Each race closes with a home stretch sprint, which is the only time you directly control your horse in real time. What makes this work is that everything feeds together and feels kinetic. Completing rounds of solitaire successfully will help give your horse more energy, while your positioning on the track at certain points will tweak your stamina. Collecting cards along the way can improve your horse’s happiness and boosts. Finally, all of these combine to power your horse to the finale at the finish line. What you do is far removed from the actual act of horse racing, but what has made this eclectic equestrian solitaire game so special is that it manages to capture the frantic immediacy of a race through unconventional means.
It’s still confusing at times, much like the 3DS release, but the altered and updated presentation helps to better communicate the nuances of races. Additionally, the tutorials are gentler, providing you a better intro and clearer reminders when you hit a wall. The upgraded visuals look sharp on the Switch’s screen and also translate well on a bigger TV. What doesn’t translate as well to TV is how the game controls. Artifacts of the 3DS design hold it back with full button controls. It’s workable but awkward to control fast-paced solitaire with an analog stick and buttons. The only part where buttons work best is in the final stretch. Otherwise, let me just sit back with the Switch in handheld mode and tap my cards away.
Even though this is more or less my third time playing through Pocket Card Jockey, the game is as enthralling as ever. The main thing holding it back is that it just doesn’t flow as well if you primarily play Switch on a TV. As a portable game, especially since the races are relatively quick and easy to pick-up-and-play, it excels. One of the unsung heroes of the 3DS is now on Switch, and at a minimum it should win, place, or show in the pantheon of Switch greats.
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