Do you ever stop and think about why video game reviewers, writers, and critics mention a game like Super Mario Bros. all the time? Sure, it is a classic video game that was not only a commercial, critical, and cultural success, but it has also become a story that is so well told that it has become ingrained into videogame history. Any video game made in the 80’s could’ve been the example set by a game like Super Mario Bros., but Nintendo in particular has made sure that Mario’s story has been told, retold, and re-experienced time and time again throughout the decades. If you ask me, that is video game preservation. Making sure that future generations have access to the stories, documents, and most importantly the games and are able to view it in context. Digital Eclipse has struck gold once again with their most recent attempt at providing us with video game history in context in Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter story. Whether you grew up with home computers or are learning about this lovable programmer for the first time, the second game in the Gold Master series shows that Digital Eclipse are at the forefront of preserving and telling the story of videogames in interactive form.
If you’ve either played Atari 50: The Anniversary collection of The Making of Karateka, you may know what to expect. For those unfamiliar, these games can best be described as interactive coffee-table books for videogames. You learn about a specific topic through video-interviews, the ability to view photos and documents in incredible detail, and of course, by playing the games. The presentation is slick and simple and the information shared is not only highly informative but entertaining as well. The game, for a lack of a better word, chronicles the journey of lauded videogame developer Jeff Minter. In the 1980’s he became emblematic for developing games for the home computer market with a true sense of authenticity and authorship. His games feature flashy and psychedelic artwork, but also a wide array of animals (to which he lovingly refers to as beasties) and arcade greatness. From Attack of the Mutant Camels, to Gridrunner, his early VIC-20 Arcade-clones, and even the famous Atari Jaguar version of Tempest 2000, the collection presents the widest array of versions and compilation of Llamasoft’s games up to the mid 1990’s.
What makes this game stand out is that it is not only filled with some great interviews with not only Jeff but other collaborators and writers as well, but that it pays meticulous attention to how Jeff was able to stand out in the crowded home computer market from the 1980’s. I adore the plethora of photos of Minter being at computer conventions selling his games, to incredibly well made scans of his original ‘Nature of the Beast’ newsletter that he sends out to fans. In a way, it makes the indie-developer scene that most people associate with the mid 2000’s look like an imitation by comparison. This is a piece of history that I was only familiar with through games like Tempest 2000 and stories being told of Jeff, but this collection just makes it incredibly accessible to those who wish to learn more about games history at a time where that was rarely documented.
The games themselves will most likely appeal to those who are already familiar with Llamasoft’s output, but for those who are new, expect a great collection of arcade-style games. Most of them are what we would today describe as shoot-em-ups or grid-based arcade games, but only a few have really become outdated. A large selection of additional features and options, like the ability to instantly open up the game's instructions or to view the controls help you get familiar with every game, even if you only play them for a few minutes. That’s the beauty of the way Digital Eclipse presents its Gold Master Series. You can learn all you can about the creator and dive into each painting, photo or text document, or much like a museum you can browse at your own pace and decide how much time you’d like to spend on a certain title. The game is easily divided into era’s, so I liked to tackle the game one era a night for a week. It made for a fantastic time that balances well between games and seeing the influence that Minter has had on the games industry and its culture. What you end up doing with that information is eventually up to you the player, but if you know people that played a lot on home computers, this might just be a fantastic way to strike up conversations.
I will say that, for how well the game and the collection itself is presented, I do think that Digital Eclipse can improve in the future with these collections. For me a primary fault was the lack of diverse speakers during the video interviews. Yes, the 1980’s are emblematic of the image of the stereotypical games, but out of the ten or so people interviewed, including only two women and no people of color does impact the way in which this story is being told. I think that especially for historians, archivists, and those wishing to preserve history, it is vital that other voices are heard especially in collections such as these. The other complaint is something that I wasn’t aware of before learning about Jeff Minter, but it is his passion and focus on music visualizers. These abstract light sensations that are shaped and form based on music and input is something that Minter has chased for decades and was something that I really wanted to learn more about. Only one visualizer is included and I’d have loved it if this game went the extra mile to show some of the later versions that Jeff Minter worked on. This is probably primarily a rights issue and skews up to the line of what is a game, but since the story itself references it often, I was hoping there’d be more to play around with.
But, as a games-archivist myself, I cannot commend Digital Eclipse enough for having the ability and access to keep telling these stories in interactive and accessible formats. If you never grew up with a Commodore 64, I know how hard it can be to learn of this part of history. But the creators of Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter story allow you to make it as easy as opening an app on your phone. Not only that, but thanks to these additional contextual materials it allows the games to be understood and studied in the context of their time. It is something that archives, cultural institutions, libraries and perhaps even lawmakers should take note of. It shouldn’t be as rare as it is, to learn about this medium’s history from sources other than PR-firms or the fans that follow these games and their creators. Llamasoft: The Jeff Minter Story shows us a way forward and presents why the history of games is ever evolving and that it is vital to the future of the way games are played and created.
One final note: At the time of writing I also experienced a de-sync of audio and video in the interviews. I was informed by a representative of Digital Eclipse that this is a bug in the Switch version and will be fixed in a patch soon after launch.
I think if you were to ask any person about their favorite period in history, barely anyone would mention the European dark ages. This historical period has usually been presented as drab, depressing and dour, unless a fantastical element is involved. It's often referred to as the Dark Ages because there is a significant lack of historical records that can be traced back to this period. At least, that is what the common assumption is. Much akin to real European history, Pentiment is a tale that shines a light on what life and society were like in this often forgotten bout of time. But what is especially astonishing is that for a time centered on religion, memento Mori and the division between church and state, Pentiment finds and presents humanity in all this. Part detective story, part roleplaying and part adventure game, it is a title that revels in its world and characters and goes to the effort of letting the player live between the margins of the page.
Andreas Maler is a painter from the city of Nuremberg. Unmarried and in the pursuit of finishing his masterpiece, an artistic depiction of November in a scriptorium, he resides in Kiersau, Austria where he works at one of the last traditional abbey's at the beginning of the 1500’s. It is a turning point in history, as the true medieval times come at a close, the town of Kiersau is caught between the wishes of those who own the land and the will of the Abbey that has persisted all this time. The player controls Andreas Maler and is able to forge his path as you learn more about the village, its citizens and the history of Kiersau. There is a fair amount of background and character building you can do as Andreas. His education, upbringing and personal interests play a large part in how certain people will respond to your questions and actions. In that sense, Pentiment follows Obsidian’s tradition of engaging roleplaying games where storytelling and choice is always front and center.
At least it would be, were it not for the jaw dropping presentation of Pentiment’s world and characters. The visual style is like a manuscript come to life, with characters drawn fairly detailed against soft, almost watercolor backgrounds. This storybook is breathing with life and even though animation is minimal and animated off-frame with intent, it never fails to amaze. The characters are clearly recognizable and understandable, which is important as there is a large cast of characters who change during the game. Yet I rarely felt truly lost, thanks to the schedule and notes you're able to keep track of in the journal. The soundtrack feels appropriate as well. Most of the time there is just ambient noises, since the game tries to depict a sense of realism. But then you'll enter the church where one of the monk’s is singing in the hall, or you learn about a story from one of the sisters in a gorgeous dreamlike sequence. It makes every moment feel earned and never failed to surprise me.
In a sense, gameplay feels almost like sidequests in a game like Majora's Mask, but with a sense of urgency as there is no rewind option. As you explore new areas, talk to people in Kiersau and decide to pursue certain activities, time progresses. There is not a real-time clock, but every in-game day is divided into segments during which you can only interact with a specific group or person. As you want to learn more about the habits and activities of individuals, you’ll need to choose between what leads to pursue. Will you go dining with the Drucker family or would it be smarter to sit in on a sewing session to hear town gossip? Is it a smart idea to go out hunting with the suspect of a crime or would you rather go into the woods to find out why the blacksmith is angry with the stonemason? All these dilemmas may sound simple on paper, but these can be truly maddening decisions as you wish to learn more about certain individuals and can not be sure what is the “correct” path.
As you might be able to tell, I'm keeping story details to a minimum as much as possible. Going in blind really is the best approach, but trust me when I say that once the story gets going you will be unable to put your controllers down. That being said, this is a game that is heavy on the reading. Thankfully the developers added this handy dictionary feature. Every time a word or phrasing comes up that refers to a place, time period, background detail, religious text or even characters in-game, you can press the minus-button and are taken to the margins of the page. Here each word is explained and even characters are presented with a small portrait so you can learn who they are. That last bit can be overwhelming at first, but after the first chapter I was pretty familiar with everyone and could easily find my way around Kiersau. There is quite a bit of walking back and forth and not an easy way to backtrack, which can be a tad frustrating at times. It feels genuine and representative of the time period and the research put into the world, but does clash with the gameplay experience at times.
The Switch version overall is a solid experience. The framerate is prioritized over resolution and feels consistent across the game. The most notable drawback are the loading times. These are present on every version of the game, including the Xbox and PC version, but on Switch it does seem to take a second or two longer to load between different areas of Kiersau. It can be a bit of a drawback when trying to find your way to the next quest or exploring the town and talking to its inhabitants. Which isn’t helped when the loading screen is framed like flipping a page and needs a few more moments to be flipped. But considering every version has been designed with a loading screen in mind, you can get used to this in the Switch version just fine.
Pentiment left a deep and lasting impression on me. Not only does it use its world and characters to present a time period that has been neglected far too often, but it makes a point of reinforcing why this is a story that needed to be told. I love how you aren't playing a strong knight, a ruler or a brilliant scientist here, but Andreas Maler, who is above all a person, like you or me. His interests, but especially his vulnerabilities and struggles make for an unusual protagonist in an even more unusual story. But throughout the adventure every step of the way, the gameplay, its visual design and story feels justified in saying that people in the Dark Ages were after all people. They weren't dumb or ignorant, but lived in different times. So rarely do we see this type of life portrayed in this particular way in games, let alone let a player walk their own path through it all. The twists and turns will keep you engaged and by the end Pentiment left me feeling with a sense of joy, purpose and appreciation. I am quite certain that if you enjoy adventure games, story driven games or roleplaying games, you will too.
During the Nintendo Direct Partner Showcase, released earlier today, several titles were announced to be released on the Nintendo Switch after the presentation. These shadow drops included a few titles that were announced earlier and also included several demo’s. In this post we’ll list an overview of everything you can play on your Switch right now, and even on that’s due tomorrow.
Demos & DLC
Unicorn Overlord: Starting out strong, the highly anticipated game from Vanillaware, creators of the acclaimed 13 Sentinels Aegis Rim, Unicorn Overlord received a new trailer ahead of its release next month. Alongside the trailer a demo of the game was announced. This demo even allows for the transfer of your save data to the full game, so should give fans of tactics games a taste of what is to arrive soon. The demo can be downloaded here.
Pepper Grinder:Pepper Grinder, developed by Ach Ech and published by Devolver Digital, feels reminiscent of games like Drill Dozer. You control pepper, who wears a drill as you dig, dash and slash your way through levels while recovering treasure. This metroidvania looks extremely polished and you can give it a shot right now with a demo on the eShop.The demo can be found here.
Suika Game:Probably the breakout viral hit from last year, Suika Game will be adding multiplayer as paid DLC for the Nintendo Switch version. The Suika Game Multi-Player Mode Expansion pack allows you to play with two players and features three new game modes, including Original, which is a PVP mode in which you need to outlast the opponent, Time Attack, which is a five-minute competition and Attack mode, in which you send sinking fruit to the opposing player’s Suika board. Additionally an online mode is in development as well and will be available to those who purchase the DLC. You can purchase the DLC here.
Releasing today:
Penny’s Big Breakaway:A surprise to pretty much everyone watching the Nintendo Direct. Penny’s Big Breakaway was met with high praise when it was demoed last year at several events. This is a new game from the team behind Sonic Mania and is a 3D action-platformer where the core mechanic is a Yo-Yo that can be used as a whip to swing across gaps, fight enemies and hover in the air. It’s colorful artstyle should make players that crave more platformers immediately feel at home. The game is available today on the eShop and costs 29,99.
Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On!Has anyone seen Neal? No? Well not really surprising because the remake / sequel of the 3DS cult-hit Pocket Card Jockey dropped out of nowhere on Switch today. For those who haven’t played the original, you are in for a treat as you play matches of Solitaire during horse races. As you win competitions, you can improve your horse stats, while getting power-ups to increase your solitaire playing abilities. But watch out, this game can suddenly take up all of your free time. Pocket Card Jockey: Ride On! Also comes with a free demo, if you feel like getting a taste of the horse racing solitaire lifestyle!The full game is available for $15.
Nintendo Switch Online Rareware blast:For those who are waiting for Rare Replay to hit the Nintendo Switch, perhaps the wait just got a whole lot easier as five, yes five, Rare Games hit Nintendo Switch Online today. These games span an entire era of Rareware and will expose a lot of new players to some of these classics. Snake Rattle ‘n Roll and R.C. PRO-AM will hit the NES Nintendo Switch Online service today, followed by Battletoads in Battlemaniacs and Killer Instinct on the SNES Nintendo Switch Online. But for those paying for the Nintendo Switch Online Expansion Pack, you will also be able to play Blast Corps from the N64 today. Check out the trailer down below for an overview of the five games.
Pentiment:
Look, even though it won’t be out for another 24 hours at least, I would like to shout out Pentiment here as well. This game is part of Xbox’s announcement of making several games available on other platforms. And while Grounded was also announced today, Pentiment will be the first game of the bunch to hit the Nintendo Switch tomorrow. Pentiment is a gorgeous narrative roleplaying game, in which you play as the painted Andreas Maler, who works in a little town in Austria in 1508. The story is magnificently told, thanks to its visual inspiration that seems directly lifted from the pages of a manuscript. If you are interested in visual novels, detective games or choice-driven role playing games, this is one that comes highly recommended. At the time of writing no store page is available yet for Pentiment.
And that’s the shadow drops from the February 2024 Partner Showcase. Let us know if you are picking up any of these games today and stay tuned for our review and further coverage!
At the beginning of January I was invited to give a lecture at a cultural center here in the Netherlands as part of their current exhibition on The Legend of Zelda series. I could've talked about the complexity of the Zelda timeline or could've explained all about Tingle's bizarre origins. But no, I dedicated my time and one full hour of a packed room to talking about the Zelda CDi games, in particular Link: the Faces of Evil and Zelda: Wand of Gamelon. Having replayed these games in preparation, I learned about their remasters, which were created by a team under the guidance of a developer named Dopply. Dopply has now released his original title, Arzette and Jewel of Faramore. Presented like a long lost CDi-game, Arzette is a faithful homage to the games that inspired it with some fun twists all its own.
Right off the bat, Arzette is immediately reminiscent of games that most will probably only have seen as memes or video playthroughs on the internet. In short, Arzette is a 2d action-platformer that sees you traveling around the world of Faramore as you defeat monsters, light up several beacons, and collect candles to remove barriers to fight bosses and retrieve the shards of the titular jewel to defeat the evil Daimur. Along the way you encounter citizens of Faramore that need help and provide you with sidequests that increase your capabilities and your means of traversing the world. This is where the CDi-ness is most spelled out as little animated cutscenes that are directly inspired by the memes that ruled the internet. Their approach in style and writing isn’t as cringey as those in Link and Zelda, but it did make me chuckle quite a few times.
I am genuinely of the belief that Link and Zelda were misunderstood in their time and that in the context of what Zelda was in early 1993, these games were pretty clearly inspired by the latest one that was released before development began, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Yes, the animation is what made them stand out to those who didn't play the game, but there is so much incredible visual splendor and music in FoE/WoG themselves that is so often overlooked. Arzette has a few advantages in that sense; the pixel art on screen is high quality with a lot of dynamic poses, while still feeling incredibly ‘90s. The controls are responsive and fluid, and while enemies still can be too overwhelming at times, the gradual difficulty curve makes the latter half of the game feel like a breeze as Arzette grows stronger and more durable against enemies. And thankfully, a game over only sends you back to the beginning of the last screen you entered.
However, what used to be designed as part of system limitations, like having to revisit areas at later times to return items and complete quests, feels like a bit of a grind in Arzette. Case in point, levels are quite sprawling and you may have to revisit them multiple times. Partially because navigation and orientation are pretty obscure, but also because you need to find items that unlock new routes. You may come halfway across a level only to realize that you need a different item in order to reach the end of the stage. This wayfinding can be charming, but it does make the initial barrier quite high. I am afraid that for players that haven't played the CDi titles, i.e. most people, this could be a turn off. On the other hand, players who are familiar with those games may find Arzette too derivative. It is fun to play a “proper” Zelda CDi game, but Arzette does lean a bit too much into references and borrowed ideas at times. It doesn't lack identity, but I was hoping for that one original item or mechanic along the way. I am glad that the developers added a ton of fun side-objectives and challenges to the game. Most of the bonus levels are inspired by other CDi and Nintendo minigames, like Hotel Mario and Smash Bros.’ break the targets. There are also challenge coins that are pretty tricky to find and unlock a time trial mode.
I will say that for a first impression, Arzette and the major cast of characters definitely carve out their own path. It isn't just a retread of thirty-year-old games, but the way its story and characters are presented there is a clear line between the homage and the original. That being said, do not expect a lengthy experience. While I didn't grab all the items or find all the secrets, I rolled credits after about three hours. It could be because I am very familiar with this type of game after my lecture, but it really isn't attempting to be an overlong epic adventure. In terms of the music, the soundtrack has some highs and lows. The tracks feel electronic and pop enough to fit the ‘90s vibe of Arzette, especially the distinction between different levels. But I did find that a few tracks became pretty draining after hearing them again and again in longer levels with a lot of backtracking.
If you go in with the expectation of a loving homage to the Zelda CDi-games, Arzette and the Jewel of Faramore is exactly what you would expect. With its cheeky cutscenes, action-platforming gameplay and side-quests that see you exploring all nooks and crannies of the world, the culmination makes for a fun game to play over a weekend. While I don't expect it to have the lasting impact that its inspiration has had, I am optimistic that Dopply continues to be inspired by games that others have rejected. So, let's hope that Arzette 2 might take after Zelda’s Adventure. I'm definitely excited to see where this series can go.
Dave the Diver seemed to have all the markings of this year's summer sleeper hit. Originally released following a successful kickstarter, the game hit PC earlier this year and was praised loudly as a refreshing indie game that worked particularly well on platforms like the Steam Deck. Thankfully Switch owners didn’t have to wait long and now Dave has cannonballed onto Nintendo’s hybrid device. Combining several genres into one fantastic package, Dave the Diver had me hooked from the very beginning and is an experience that I would recommend to anyone in a heartbeat.
Dave is an old diver coming out of retirement at the behest of his business partner Cobra, who has set up shop near the Blue Lagoon–quite literally, because he has opened a sushi restaurant that prides itself on only using locally sourced ingredients. Of course, the one who has to catch the meal of the day is Dave. As you plunge into the Blue Hole, you’re armed with a harpoon gun and an oxygen tank. Your goal is simple: catch a wide variety of aquatic wildlife during the day that can be chopped up and served to customers at night.
Let’s focus on the diving aspect first. This part of the game has a pretty straightforward loop: each in-game day you get to go on two diving excursions and collect fish and other objects from the seafloor. You either successfully come back up with a large quantity of fish and collectibles or you run out of oxygen and only get to bring a single item back up to shore with you.Controlling Dave starts out feeling quite sluggish, but thankfully you’re quickly able to upgrade and improve your gear over time or find helpful items in underwater containers. Fish are either caught by reeling them in with your harpoon-gun, or by actually dealing damage to them with a variety of weapons. There are melee weapons like tennis rackets, baseball bats, and your trusty knife, but you’re also able to find and purchase shotguns, tranquilizer darts, and pistols. The catch–pun intended–is that damaging your fish with these traditional weapons makes them less useful for cooking. This means that there’s always a delicate balance between deciding to either take a fish out because it poses a threat, or trying your hardest at reeling them in.
While being underwater there is of course much more to discover than just fish. It’s not long after you begin with your diving expeditions that you are contacted by researchers. These characters want you to go out and find relics from an ancient civilization, or specific fish to write their papers on. In turn, this also causes other characters to respond to your actions, such as a wildlife protection group showing up when you attract their attention after blowing up a cave to find more relics. What is particularly impressive here is that the dives you go on aren’t randomly generated, but the hole always follows a similar pattern. You’d think this would get repetitive, but what makes and keeps Dave the Diver so intriguing is that every milestone you pass either rewards or surprises you. For example, if you happen to go on a successful dive that provides a lot of gold, you can spend it to upgrade your suit and gear for better dives. But even after unsuccessful dives, in particular because sharks can be quite aggressive, there are usually new character interactions or mission objectives introduced that can still be completed. This keeps the game feeling fresh, especially once you get to go to deeper levels of the Blue Lagoon. The best comparison is probably a game like Steamworld Dig 2, where you are intrinsically encouraged to keep exploring the depths beneath and experiment with new weapons and navigational tools.
But the real secret to Dave the Diver’s addictive nature is that your goal isn’t just being a nebulous fish-collector. At the end of each day, you return to your sushi restaurant and select the fish that will be served as meals to paying customers. The level of customization here is astounding, because you aren’t just decorating your restaurant or hiring staff; you are actively responsible for creating the menu. Certain fish are worth much more than others, but even the small fry can be enhanced with additional ingredients like soy sauce, sea salt, and spices. Enhancing these meals costs fish, meaning that you will have a small quantity available on the menu and need to decide whether you want to serve many customers or wring the fewer paying customers dry. And that’s not all: you are also required to assist in serving the restaurant. You need to keep track of pouring drinks, which gives a tipping bonus, you have to keep grinding up wasabi, and you need to clean up the bar itself. You can hire additional staff to assist with the cooking and serving, but they do eat into your profits. It makes for a straightforward, but accessible management game that has a lot of depth to it.
The balancing act on display here, with both the diving and the restaurant segments, makes Dave the Diver super rewarding to return to. Whereas other scavenger-likes such as Subnautica, Rust, and even Minecraft can feel overwhelming in their endlessness, Dave the Diver has an incredible focus. And even if its structure is something that you can appreciate over time, what is immediately striking is its gorgeous visual style. Mint Rocket has crafted an appealing look that somehow is able to balance pixel-art and what look like 3D-models next to one another. It is as if the art-style from pixel games like Pokémon Black and White has been perfected in the animation of its creatures and characters as well as in differentiating the different depths in the Blue Hole. But above all are the phenomenal cutscenes. Blending a love of over the top anime montages with a more traditional pixel-art style that made me always want to watch them, even when the skip button was right there. This is the spice that truly makes Dave the Diver stand out from the crowd of other pixel-art inspired indie games.
That doesn’t mean that all is well under the sea. Load times on the Switch are quite noticeable, especially going between the diving and the restaurant sections. I also found that the game does take a little bit to really get you to understand its diving and serving mechanics. It can be quite overwhelming as four different mechanics are introduced one after another and you only realize how they work together several hours later. There are plenty of collectibles, but keeping track of the Pokédex-like system, the “research these fish”-app and the missions-tab can all blend together, especially in the menu-interface, which is designed to resemble a smartphone filled with apps. I had to take a bit of time to get accustomed to the way in which you plan a goal for yourself. I had actually grown quite experienced with diving and exploration long before I even made it out of the first chapter, because I didn’t realize I had to find a specific item and complete a quest.
But even during dives where the game wasn’t giving me proper direction, I still was enthralled by the experience and wanted to plunge back into the game again and again. I’ll never forget the moments where I was clinging on by single digits on the oxygen tanks and barely made it out alive, over encumbered with fish, or the moments where I was suddenly jumped by a predator and had to evasively dive away and shoot my gun in blind panic. Dave the Diver keeps you on your toes, but the rewards after a successful dive always make me want to play “just one more round.” My sushi restaurant is currently thriving, and I am still looking forward to jumping back in many more times after this review is published.
Editor’s Note: We’ve chosen to make the review for the DLC for Pokémon Scarlet & Violet, The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, a review-in-progress. This is due to the fact that the DLC consists of two parts that cannot be purchased separately. Additionally the DLC tells a continuous story, so it feels unjust to review a DLC with a story that hasn’t been concluded yet. The final review will review both pieces of DLC and the overall experience.
After writing a pretty substantial editorial piece on why Pokémon Scarlet and Violet still suck I have to admit that I was at the very least slightly curious as to how the upcoming DLC, dubbed the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, would fare. Taking place in smaller, separate locations, it might even improve some of the dreaded performance issues of the base games. But, if this first piece of DLC is anything to go by, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet still have quite some way to go to win me back over. The Teal Mask does a lot of table setting, but leaves the setting itself ringing slightly hollow.
The Teal Mask picks up immediately after concluding the base game and the story revelations therein. After having explored the fabled Area Zero, probably leaving with more questions than answers, the player is selected as part of an exclusive field trip to the land of Kitakami. This new region is home to a lot of returning pokémon that hadn’t made their way to Paldea quite yet, as well as some new regional forms and creatures. As you set out to learn more about the Kitakami region you are joined by several new characters including the siblings Kieran and Carmine. At first they are definitely not happy with foreigners entering their lands, but as you battle them with your pokémon they grow to like you more and more over time. Of course, there are signature pokémon as well, in this particular case Ogrepon, the wearer of the titular Teal Mask. As you go about, you learn more about the history of Ogrepon and its relation to “The Loyal Three”, a group of Pokémon that once fought against Ogrepon.
Let’s get the major things out of the way. The Teal Mask is pretty much another smaller explorable region that is very similar to Paldea. A big mountain in the center surrounded by ravines, woods and lakes on all sides. Gameplay wise there are no notable changes to the core gameplay loop. You still have access to Koraidon/Miraidon and are able to freely travel as you wish and find new pokémon. The returning cast of pokémon that were absent in Scarlet and Violet are a bit of a mixed bag. Fan favorites like the original Wooper, Snorlax, Milotic, Litwick, Cramorant and even Alolan and Hisuian forms of certain Pokémon can be found and added to your party. But also a few less obvious, and frankly not that useful, inclusions are here like Noctowl, Ariados, Slugma, Volbeat, Chingling, Vullaby and Cutiefly can be found in the wilds of Kitakami. Important of note is that the levels of these wild pokémon start around their 60’s, meaning you are encouraged to bring your previous party members and may have a hard time building up an entirely new team. The new pokémon are quite rad, including a twist on a recent Pokémon I wasn’t expecting. I think that the Loyal Three are probably the most disappointing, sporting fun abilities, but their designs and interaction with the player just are not clicking right.
I think that Kitakami falls flat for me because, even though it is clearly inspire by the smaller rural communities of Japan, it doesn’t do much with that premise. Kitakami holds a festival, but outside of a, frankly middling, minigame, the festival barely has any impact on the goings on in Kitakami. Some local food can be purchased and there is one important scene that is relevant to the story, but other than that Kitakami feels even more barren than Scarlet and Violet did. There is one community center that functions as a town, but that leaves very little room for engagement with the culture of Kitakami. While your main story progression is based on reading actual post signs with some of the history of the region, there is barely anything that harkens back to what sets it apart from Paldea outside of its creatures. This is particularly disappointing after the fantastic storytelling and setup that was done to promote one of the new pokémon found here, Poltchageist. This one trailer had so much more buildup and myth behind it than any of the other stories found in Kitakami.
The one notable exception to this is a side-quest given to you by Perrin, an enthusiastic photographer that is visiting the region from Sinnoh. Perrin is not very subtle in both her design and interests for the Hisui region that was featured in Pokémon Legends: Arceus. She has a small side-quest but her story left much more of an impression on me than that of Carmine and Kieran. Now granted, Kieran is set up to play a larger role in the next part of the DLC, the Indigo Disk, but it is such a contrast with Perrin. During her sidequest there is even a little segment that harkened back to the observing of pokémon for the pokédex in Pokémon Legends. I do hope that another counterpart of her appears in the Indigo Disk to represent the Pearl clan, because this segment felt refreshing and wanted to somewhat bridge the gap between Legends and Scarlet and Violet. Something that was definitely missing in the base game.
Something else that is missing in this DLC are frames. It is frankly astonishing that after almost a full year of updates, including one introduced with this DLC that fixes some notable issues with the dex and boxes, The Teal Mask still runs at an abysmal framerate. It is a smaller region with a lot less Pokémon than Scarlet and Violet and still the performance and visual glitches are unavoidable. From the camera spacing out during battles with wild pokémon or other trainers, to the low draw distances the pumping of the brakes on the framerate when jumping or gliding through the air. Even that great sidequest I mentioned earlier is barely holding it together as you are tasked with finding certain pokémon in a small, closed off environment. I wasn’t expecting the DLC to fix any of the core issues, but the fact that it comes across as if no lessons had been learned from the reception of the core games makes it even more jarring how this DLC was sold to potential buyers.
So far, the conclusion about the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero is very simple. If you liked Pokémon Scarlet and Violet, including exploring the world and catching pokémon, you will probably have fun with this DLC. But all The Teal Mask does is set-up for the next DLC, the Indigo Disk. It has very little truly its own to offer with the exception of Perrin’s sidequest and the Ogre Oustin’ minigame. You may add some new pokémon to your collection, but this smaller area does very little to elevate any of the core issues at the heart of Scarlet and Violet. In particular this region comes across as barren with not nearly anything as promising as the stories that were told before its release. Here’s to hoping that the Indigo Disk can bring these broken pieces together and possibly even find a bow to wrap it all up. But if this first DLC is anything to go by, I am nervously holding my breath for that a little while longer…
Willem went nuts and made an entire video essay for this editioral, so be sure to give it a watch over on our YouTube-channel!
I’d say that when it comes to faith in the Pokémon series I’ve been on the more positive side over the last decade. I’ve written and made a whole video essay before about how the Pokémon franchise has evolved and how our perception of what a remake should be has shifted since the series inception. When it was revealed that for the 8th generation not all previously available Pokémon would return I didn’t blame The Pokémon Company or Game Freak, but recalled when Black and White took a step in that same direction to let new Pokémon take the spotlight. Pokémon Legends: Arceus was a thrilling step into a new direction and had my hopes high for the following 9th generation of Pokémon. But Scarlet and Violet may have finally broken something in me. Sure, other loud voices had been declaring that Pokémon had lost its touch ever since the shift to full 3D-models, but this time around I personally felt that something had been lost. Whereas others embraced this new approach to Pokémon, I have dreaded most of my 70+ hours of playing these games. Now, on the eve before the first wave of DLC hits and shifts the perception of what Scarlet and Violet are, allow me a moment to look back and examine why I think Scarlet and Violet kind of suck.
I really could just drop in: “performance issues‘ right here and call it a day. I am one who tends to excuse lower framerates, unoptimized performances, and the lack of visual fidelity on Nintendo’s systems. But upon reflection, and especially with almost a year of updates, most of the problems with its core approach can all be boiled down to its frankly abysmal performance. However, as I'm writing this before the release of the DLC, I am quite certain that the optimization of the core game has shifted to its DLC and will be largely left behind. After its release several patches and updates were released that aimed to fix bugs, such as the 1.2.0 patch released in February of 2023. That means that as of right now I feel confident in talking about its faults and how this seeps through into the core of the experience.
See, Pokémon games have always had a sort of weird relationship with their optimization from the very beginning. I definitely do not envy Game Freak, as doing balancing, testing, and animating for hundreds of creatures is a daunting task. But even in Red/Blue, glitches and bugs were almost part of its identity. It fed into the popularization of myths and legends around certain pokémon. Let’s be frank, Missingno would have been a footnote today if it wasn’t such a common occurrence that it was brought up in magazines, websites, and on the schoolyard itself. All down to a simple glitch that was caused by the game just needing to be pushed out the door. Even when the first week of social media on Scarlet and Violet was all of the weird glitches and bugs that players ran into, I didn’t pay it much attention. This is par for the course and obviously the developers are aware of them as well. What is more worrisome is the general state of the game upon release and how it hampers every aspect of its playing experience. Look at the original Pokémon Diamond and Pearl for example. Yes, the story, creatures, and world are possibly some of the best in the series. But its gameplay and performance feels slow and drags on in both the menus, battle animations, and overworld interaction. It is no wonder that Pokémon Platinum is the preferred version to play of that generation. Not only because it feels like a definitive version, it also speeds up a lot of the game and its core features.
Scarlet and Violet feel the worst to play in this regard by a long mile. The vast majority of the game is a drag to play. Using items, selecting moves, and watching the battle unfold takes ages. You would think that with Sword and Shield, or even Pokémon Legends running at a pretty consistent speed, this would be a cakewalk. But going through the motion in both battling, catching, and equipping items to your Pokémon feels like slamming the brakes out of nowhere. You may say: well, use the auto-battle option. But even with that feature you can’t avoid traditional encounters entirely. Traversing around the world you keep running into wild Pokémon, which can sometimes pop up a millisecond before you run into them. It makes every time you fight a trainer, battle a wild Pokémon or even navigate your in-game menus a horrendous ordeal. In particular attack animations which, although they have an increased speed compared to Sword and Shield, are unable to be turned off in the settings for the first time in the series history. It’s all little things when looking at them individually, but together they jam the gears of what should and could be a fairly standard Pokémon adventure.
Speaking of those menus, the worst times are when using the Pokémon boxes and Pokedex itself. Two essential features for not only determining your next objective, but also swapping out party members and movesets. The Pokédex and the boxes actively load while you are using them. Meaning it takes a few seconds when opening a new box or finding an entry in the dex before you can see the Pokémon itself. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a delay so bad before in a Pokémon game for what should essentially be a checklist or navigational spreadsheet. Let alone missing features such as browsing quickly through the Pokédex or getting a proper indication for the habitat of Pokémon. You could argue that this is part of the design, but not giving the player any navigational tools like markers means you are relying on this badly designed Pokédex. A feature that was the literal focus in the last core game of the series.
So let’s talk about Scarlet and Violet’s odd relation to Pokémon Legends: Arceus. Not only did both games release in the same year, they share a lot of the core identity. Both wanting to enable the player to explore a wide open world with their Pokémon and determining their own route along the way. The games are both about streamlining the management of Pokémon themselves and are much more about the player's expression. But where the Hisui region in Legends feels designed for this open-ended exploration and the learning about the Pokémon, Paldea is a mess to explore. Not only are you always tied to your Miraidon / Koraidon. They are also pitifully slow in most basic actions, even after fully upgrading all their movement capabilities. Now legends suffered from this as well, but legends had a trick up its sleeve with a fragmented overworld. Not only did this probably aid the game to run at a more consistent framerate, but it also made exploration exciting and manageable. It made going back to earlier areas exciting as you unlocked new modes of transport. That could be used for finding new items, spotting Spiritomb pieces and of course, finding new Pokémon that were visible before, but you were unable to approach or capture. Like the flying Magnezone and Togekiss in the sky.
In Paldea the world feels barren. There are distinct regions, but rarely do they feel like they have their own characteristics. Brown Mountain, Rocky Canyon, desert bit and coastline blend together to make the Paldean region feel unappealing. The exploration and size of the world feels meaningless. It feels like there are only ten or so buildings you can enter in all of Paldea, excluding the gyms themselves. Can you tell me anything significant about these places and why people live there or what defines their life outside of being the location for a Pokémon Gym? You never need to meet any NPCs that live in a town, meaning they are little more than a rush to find the Gym Leader. Sure one town has fields of olive gardens and another is filled with fountains, but they functionally lost all meaning of being there. If I say Celadon City, Goldenrod City, Lavaridge Town, Oreburgh City, Nimbasa City, Snowbelle City, Malie City or Motostoke, you can at least let your imagination run wild. But outside of its capital Mesagoza and maybe Cascarrafa and Levencia there are no locations that feel meaningful. Even Area Zero, which is great, does not have any NPC’s running around for its worldbuilding. It has meaning in absence and unique diversity in Pokémon, but frankly that absence of other humans could be felt all throughout the Paldea region.
I really don’t like to keep comparing these games but again, look at Legends. Settlements in the Hisui region show how the people live and also provide quests and grow over time. You are encouraged to meet up with NPCs to get a sense of their lives and the world. There are funny characters that aren’t Gym Leaders and have a role to play, like the general staff of the Galaxy Team who actively engage with the player. Unlike the staff at the Naranja or Uva academy who feel not just secondary but can be missed altogether if you decide to never take any optional classes. This caused my behavior to shift while exploring Paldea. I rarely talked to any trainers in the open world, let alone battle them. The need for that engagement was gone and their rewards, be it experience or money, were not worth the trouble of having to deal with slowdown, the in-game menus, and the terrible performance. One may argue that it is to ‘break with the conventions’ like another long-running franchise did in its open-world outing. But the trainers are still there, they have just been made redundant because avoiding them is by far the most logical option.
And then there’s Game Freak wanting to have both a returning feature and putting a new spin on it with Tera Raid battles. These combine the fantastic Raid Battles from Galar, with the godawful performance of Scarlet and Violet and remove the turn-based mechanics in an online environment. The end result is a complete mess, where half of the time players have no idea what they are doing and you end up waiting to see if your move even made a dent. This is coupled with also having to tackle either unbelievably strong Pokémon that require you to have a very specific approach before you begin the fight or Pokémon that are one-shotted by using a type-effective move. The Crystal Cavern mechanic is interesting, but half the time just finding people to play with and coordinating anything over an online connection where input timing is essential make the game just fall apart. Even after technical improvements post-launch, Tera Raid Battles are still badly explained mechanically and feels more like throwing up roadblocks for the sake of being obstacles instead of making the player feel smart about their choice of Pokémon. What really left me sour is that as of right now, there are new Pokémon like Walking Wake and Iron Leaves locked behind this mechanic. Meaning that you are required to have both Pokémon strong enough to withstand their attack and be able to communicate with other players properly to add these creatures to your collection. Sure, it is more engaging than connecting to the internet and downloading them, but it also feels like the least elegant solution when you have a world that the designers want you to explore. Just to throw an idea out there, they are based on roaming legendaries. So just have them out there roaming around and running away through this big open world. It would’ve complemented the design of the game and perhaps even given some significance to now meaningless locations in Paldea.
At its best moments, Pokémon Scarlet and Violet run just well enough to make you feel like you can freely explore every nook and find new creatures. But almost all the time the brakes are slammed down as you run into a performance hiccup, need to wait while opening a menu, or run into a wild Pokémon. It is a game that unintentionally makes you aware that you are playing a game. Every time I went back to it after finishing, I was instantly reminded of how little fun I have with it, which is a shame because I do think there is a lot to love here on paper. The story, especially Area Zero and Arven's role, is quite engaging. In fact, Area Zero being separate from its main world seems to make a huge difference. I also love most of the new Pokémon in this generation and some refreshing versions with the paradox-mon are a cool approach to reinvent what certain Pokémon are. But this is part of the course for almost any Pokémon game: having ups and downs. I do not like Team Star nor their implementation in the story and also think that some new evolution methods are outright bizarre. The glaring and recurring issue is that the technical problems seep into making me feel down every time I want to give Scarlet and Violet a shot. I have friends who still actively play the game for shiny hunting and team building, and I wish I had more of a desire to join in on that, because I still am truly a fan of the Pokémon games. But even thinking about booting up Scarlet just makes me instantly look for something else to play. I can’t deal with a game that had the blueprint for how it could be done right in front of it, but instead just sank beneath its own weight.
I suspect that with the release of the Hidden Treasures of Area Zero DLC, its focus on two entirely new locations might be much more akin to what Hisui and even Galar were about. I am genuinely hoping that this can be a smaller scale adventure, much like the Isle of Armor and the Crown Tundra in Galar with the Sword and Shield’s Expansion pass, thus mitigating some of the technical issues while providing some much needed character to the Paldea region. In turn, this will probably shift the conversation about S/V for the foreseeable future, discourse that overshadowed how these games tried to run before they could walk, and perhaps contradicted themselves when the smaller separate locations improved on the experience. But that doesn't mean we should skip past the massive road bumps that the core of these games was designed around and that seeped into their design. Much has already been said on the topic of The Pokémon Company and Game Freak’s relentless schedule and them needing to push out new games every two years. Yes, that conversation ties in with my personal gripes with Scarlet and Violet, but I don’t think that my issues with them would all be solved if the developers had another full year to work on the game. The technical issues are a disappointment on top, but the core underneath them is flawed in places that additional development time wouldn’t have been able to fix. Tera Raid Battles, the lack of personality for each of the cities–even though they have been elaborately designed–and the lack of incentives for a player while exploring the world are things that cannot be solved within a year. Without a doubt, better optimization would be a benefit for the entire game, but it wouldn’t have elevated Scarlet and Violet to the top tier of Pokémon mainline games for me. Because in the end, after playing every single Pokémon game, I don’t think I’ve ever had the urge to stop catching them all as much as after Scarlet and Violet. That, above all else, scares me the most.
I did an escape room once with my old group of housemates. While it definitely was a fun collaborative experience, some of our unorthodox methods of trying to solve the puzzle must have gotten us some raised eyebrows from those monitoring the room behind the scenes. I mean sure, filling liquid up to the right amount into a canister and then using that canister to weigh down a scale was quite fun, but perhaps because I relied on the communication with others the puzzles took much longer than intended. Thankfully Escape Academy, now presented on the Switch as the Complete Edition, makes the art of an escape room much easier to grasp. In fact, with online and local co-op enabled it made for some of the most fun one-on-one multiplayer I’ve had in a long time.
Escape Academy sees you becoming a student at the titular institution. A school fully dedicated to the art of escape, where you take classes on all sorts of subjects that teach you how to get away in dire situations. Taking you through a wide variety of locations, having an escape room in videogame form makes for an entertaining ride with scenarios that I wouldn’t feel comfortable with in real life. From a room slowly filling up with water, to a botanical garden that belongs to a bomb creator, Escape Academy is a wildly inventive location that reminded me of fictional schools like Wayside or even Hogwarts.
But of course a game based on escape rooms stands or falls with its puzzle design. While I don’t think that all scenarios are ranked equally, Escape Academy has a pretty great set of puzzles. What I think the escape scenarios do particularly well, is that they maintain a clever balance of slowly opening up to the more intricate design at play, while also teaching you the tricks you need to keep an eye out for. Take the monument garden for example, which starts off fairly easily with you needing to find paints to scribble your signature on the monument, but quickly devolves into opening safes, re-arranging items as well as understanding how to access the monument itself. Items you find along the way have a particular use, but realizing how they fit together is half the enjoyment of the puzzles.
This is where co-op gameplay truly shines. While it does have an effect on performance on Switch, walking around and discussing the possible solution with another player really makes the game come alive. The developers have also thought of some great features that make communication much easier. At any time in co-op, you can switch to the view of the other player. During my time with the game this was especially helpful with deciphering codes and messages as my friend was standing near the cipher, while I entered the code. You still may want to talk and communicate, but it lowers the barrier of entry by quite a lot. Two-player multiplayer might seem like a limitation, though in practice the rooms are definitely designed for one to two players. When playing alone I found myself taking little notes, which the game even recommends, but just having another player to talk to really improved the overall experience. The game supports local multiplayer as well, so it is probably a great game to play with a partner or friend on the couch.
The visual style of Escape academy is quite pleasing, but does occasionally struggle to really pop on Switch. Jagged edges, plain textures and a setback in fidelity withhold the game from really embracing its cell-shaded design. This is even worse in multiplayer, where the game really drops in visual fidelity. It is fortunately never required to read or spot small details, but it is clear that the game wasn’t designed from scratch with Switch in mind. The other major setback is that the story and characters aren’t that memorable. The goofy janitor Jeb, the mysterious principal and your rival student are just there and don’t add that much meaning to the story. They very much play into the flimsy tropes and characters you are used to from actual escape rooms. I also wasn’t particularly fond of the music, outside of the great title theme really isn’t that special.
Included with the Complete edition are additional level packs that feature multiple new settings and escape rooms. These are, in my opinion, of a much higher difficulty than the base game and provide some good challenges after the main story. Here some of my gripes with the music and characters are relieved, especially with the Time Travel pack, though the overall story is still straightforward. I’d definitely recommend playing these after you’ve earned your diploma from the academy itself.
Escape Academy : The Complete edition is a great collection of escape-room puzzles that are a must-play for fans of point-and-click adventure games and looking for a fun time racking their brains. The co-op, whether local or online is an absolute must and improves the experience by a mile. While you won’t get too much out of the story and characters, the additional level packs add on top of the good serving of puzzles you’ll encounter. I have to admit that after my time with Escape Academy, some actual escape rooms will have a hard time living up to this experience.
Back in 2020 Neal reviewed Summer in Mara on the Nintendo Switch. It was a game I had kept an eye out for, but ultimately his review helped to convince me that it simply wasn’t a game I’d get much enjoyment from. So consider my surprise when I learned that Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara wasn’t a spin-off sequel to that title, but only after playing did I realize that this was a continuation of the Summer in Mara series. Much like Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair, Koa and the Five Pirates throws the original design of its predecessor out the window and has turned the farming-exploration game into a 3D platformer, which feels akin to the pick up and play titles from the GameCube/PS2-era. The end result is a very accessible platformer that will challenge even veterans quite a bit.
Koa and the Five Pirates picks up, I think, a few years after the events of Summer in Mara. Koa is traveling around the islands of Mara when she suddenly receives word that pirates have raided the village of Qualïs. Thankfully, these pirates have mostly done so as a prank to challenge anyone to take on the pirate trials of Mara. It’s up to Koa to triumph over these challenges and return peace to Mara. Along the way there are a number of friendly villagers to talk to as well as various islands to explore.
The best point of comparison for Koa and the Five Pirates of Mara is something like Super Mario 3D Land. Each island has one or more stages in which your objective is simply to reach the end goal. Koa has a fairly simple moveset consisting of a run, a dash and a bomb jump. The more advanced technique is a sort of long jump that you can chain into a roll, giving Koa a lot of momentum. Along the way there are hidden collectibles that you can find to upgrade the ship that you use to travel between the stages or to unlock cosmetics like outfits and backpacks. Movement feels pretty good, though I did find myself often wanting to use the more advanced mechanics while having to adjust to Koa not controlling ‘exactly’ like Mario. If you play stages at a leisurely pace, the game is great for younger players that aren’t as familiar with 3D-platformers. In that sense it really reminded me of games I grew up with like Rayman 2, Toy Story 2, and the SpongeBob games. I will say that there isn’t as much character to the different people you meet on your journey, but perhaps this is because it wants to tie in more closely with the first game.
The real challenge is presented at the end of a level. After completing a stage you are presented with the time it took you to reach the goal. There’s a bronze, silver and gold medal attached to this completion time, and this really incentivized me to complete stages as fast as possible. Whereas on your first attempt running is simply optional, to get a gold medal you will need to run, long jump and find shortcuts everywhere. Don’t expect Neon White levels of speedrunning tech, but there definitely is something satisfying about redoing a stage and learning all the ins and outs of a level to get to the goal as quickly as you can. Later levels especially can be quite a challenge due to playing with mechanics like disappearing platforms and ice-physics. This gameplay loop, however, is very rewarding, and while not stated outright, I think this really can be engaging for parents who want to play with their children. That having been said, the overall presentation of Koa and the Five Pirates can come across as a bit plain at times. Static character portraits, compressed visuals, simple level geometry and a lack of meaningful rewards make the game just feel a bit unpolished. When it comes to gameplay this really doesn’t matter, but the soundtrack repeats quite a few tracks and some of the additional levels are really barren. There’s a minigame where you have to guide a crane to the bottom of the sea to grab a collectible, but it basically boils down to mashing the ZR-button and avoiding enemies. Then there are levels where the goal is simply to talk to one person who’s somewhere on the island. It seems at times that there was a desire to make the ocean, your world map, feel expansive with a lot of islands to visit. But ultimately these can just come across as set dressing. The ‘boss’ challenges also aren’t really anything to write home about. The majority of them are races, where you either need to reach the end of a goal or defeat the boss by tossing items or hitting switches. They suffice for certain, but I wish that their imaginative designs were put to better use.
Overall, I think that Koa and the Five Pirates is a great reworking of the Summer in Mara world and characters. Being a 3D character platformer just makes the gameplay feel fast-paced and welcoming. Like I stated, for younger players this is a great introduction to these types of games if you’re looking for something that might be even more accessible than Mario. For platforming veterans there’s some decent challenge in getting gold medals in every stage, but other than that it might feel a bit too simple. The game might be unpolished in a few places, but there was very little that hampers the gameplay experience. Leaving the door open for future Mara adventures, I think that these characters really lend themselves to different genres and experiences. Even if I didn’t pick up on many of the callbacks to Summer in Mara, I could tell that the developers really like these characters and this world they’ve created. Perhaps it’s time to explore the RTS or RPG genre in Mara?
There really aren’t any game designers out there like Shu Takumi. The Capcom veteran responsible for creating the Ace Attorney series understands like few other designers what makes a good mystery and how to design mechanics that deepen the player's connection to that mystery. I adore the Ace Attorney series with all my heart, but it is a little-known standalone DS game that I’d consider Takumi’s magnum opus. And after thirteen years of waiting, the game has finally returned in a definitive, polished-up version. For those who are already familiar with this game’s tricks, Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective on Switch is the perfect version to relive its twisting tale and vibrant characters. For those who are new to the experience, something truly special awaits you.
Usually in games, death is pretty much the end, but with a death is where Ghost Trick begins. You play as Sissel, a recently departed soul with a bad case of amnesia who died in a junkyard at night. As a ghost, Sissel possesses–pun intended–the ability to control the world of the living by performing his ghost tricks. These tricks can impact objects in the world to spin, whirl, fold, twist, turn on machinery, and much much more. Your goal is simple: find out how and why you died. Unfortunately, your only lead seems to be a detective named Lynne, who herself is the target of a hitman, and she just died as well. Sissel’s spirit, however, is able to travel back four minutes before her death and use his trick to alter Lynne’s fate. From there, the story twists and turns as you slowly learn more and more about strange events and deaths taking place all over town. Ghost Trick is full of great scenes that make its world come alive (yes, this one too).
Gameplay in Ghost Trick consists of two segments. On the one hand, there are the discoveries, as I call them. During these moments you are using your ghost powers to traverse rooms and obstacles to find certain people to interact with or learn more about what is going on in the story. As a soul, you can trace a line, either by using the touch screen similar to the DS-version or by moving the joystick between your soul and the core of another object. Once you’re in the other core, you can leave the Ghost World and trick the object. For example a foldable ladder can be extended, an umbrella can be opened, or a bell can be rung. Most of the time, this will attract the intention of people around the scene, and present new routes for you to get to your destination. Here you will learn more about the characters and the way they interact with others and the world around them. This knowledge comes in handy when dealing with the bodies.
Ghost Trick really turns into a detective game when Sissel comes across a dead body. Being able to turn back the clock to four minutes before that death took place, and with the ghost tricks at your disposal, it is possible to prevent a death from happening and change that individual’s fate. The game truly comes into its own during these moments when you are, in real-time, learning about how the death happened and how it can be stopped. Each death is set up like a Rube Goldberg machine, where the individual pieces can be tricked to change the outcome. At certain points you’ll change the fate of the person involved, causing the scene to shift significantly and open up new paths. The game is entirely linear in its solutions but the combination of the ticking clock while solving the death shifts your approach every time. Using that knowledge is key to learning how each murder can be prevented.
But the puzzles aren’t the only thing that made Ghost Trick a cult hit; its heart truly lies with its cast of eclectic characters. These range from Lynne’s incredible optimism and determination, to probably the greatest animal sidekick in all of video games in the form of Missile. As you encounter more and more of those involved, you start to see the connections between the characters and how Sissle relates to them as well. Even for those who only appear for one or two scenes, their animations and writing just sell the character immediately, such as Inspector Cabanella’s wild dancing motions, the way Missile jumps around, and how the Junkyard’s superintendent communicates with a pigeon. The music is also a suspenseful fusion of jazz and electronic beats that do a great job of communicating the situation Sissel finds himself in. It’s definitely not as tense or diverse as the Ace Attorney games are known for, but it’s a well balanced soundtrack that has some great tunes.
Ghost Trick is a phenomenal experience for first time players, but this remaster is a little bit barebones for those who might be hoping for some new chapters or stories. The game has a great unlockable art gallery that is a treat for those who are big fans of this game. There is also a jukebox that has both the original and the new arranged soundtrack. The real new piece of content here is a puzzle mode, where you simply solve a set of sliding puzzles in a grid of several sizes. There are some in-game achievements that can be unlocked by playing these, but don’t expect any new substantial content. I like some of the UI changes that have been made, but really whether you’re playing the original DS release, the mobile port, or this new remaster, you can’t go wrong with any version of this game. The biggest advantage here is that the game just looks a whole lot shinier in HD and that it is just great to have Ghost Trick back for new players to experience for the very first time.
Replaying Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective really cemented my feeling that this is still one of best mystery stories ever told in the medium. The gameplay is inventive and makes every trick feel surprising and new, while reinforcing the idea of how objects relate to each other. But it’s the cast of Ghost Trick that has remained endearing after all these years. Finding out what happened to Sissel, how Lynne is involved, and how everyone on this one strange night is connected: that story just feels like something that cannot be told in a television series or movie, but truly stands on its own as a game. It is no surprise to me that Shu Takumi apparently often revisits this game to reflect on how he has grown as a designer. If you’re already familiar with this game, you won’t be missing out on any meaningful extras by skipping this release, but if you are new to Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective it is a must play. It is one of those games that doesn’t need a sequel or prequel but is a perfectly self-contained story that truly hasn’t aged a day. I couldn’t be happier that Ghost Trick has been brought back to life one more time.
Acting like a detective always feels a bit like cheating in video games. Rarely does a mystery game deliver on the premise of the player putting all the clues together, without it coming across as if there is a guiding hand shadowing over you. Just relying on your observational skills and putting all the little pieces together is absolutely one of the most rewarding experiences in games. Titles like Return of the Obra Dinn, A Hand with Many Fingers and last year's Immortality have a win-state so to speak, but the true victory is when the player arrives at the ‘Wait!? I GET IT’ moment of realization as to how the different pieces fit together. The Case of the Golden Idol is a truly phenomenal addition to this subset of detective games, spinning an intriguing narrative that makes you feel incredible for figuring out how it all comes together.
The Case of the Golden Idol follows the history of several English-inspired noblemen around the 1700s and the trail left behind by a small golden idol. You play as an omnipotent observer where you investigate what can only be described as tableaus. Each tableau depicts a moment in time that coincides with a death. The tableaus have little interactive sets, where you can click on people or objects and add words to your notebook. It is up to you to complete several objectives using the information you collect. This can vary from identifying all the individuals that are part of the tableau, where all of them were located during the time of the event happening, as well as their intertwining relationships with one another. Some of these are pretty straightforward, like servants and lords. But others can suddenly have entered the tableau for the first time, or be a random person caught up in the event. The tableau is completed when you can put together what specifically happened at that time and, usually, who passed away due to what reason.
The game is incredibly hands off. All the clues are numbered in a checklist at the bottom of the screen and you can access your thoughts at any time. You might perhaps start out with naming all the individuals that are seen on screen, or you can immediately try and put the story together. The navigation is really straightforward with the player dragging the clues or words to particular fields and entering them to complete the lines of thought. All of this is presented in a fantastic visual style that is somewhat reminiscent of LucasArts games from the ‘90s. I particularly loved the changing musical styles as you investigate different scenes within the tableau. When seeing a large map the music has a theme, but when you start looking into a cabin, a violin is added to speed up the tempo, turning dire when you come across the body and have to figure out what exactly happened. The only thing I’d knock against the soundtrack is that it does get a bit repetitive when you are stuck solving a puzzle. At times, I did throw on something else in the background when I was really trying to put together one particularly challenging scene.
All of this makes The Case of the Golden Idol a fantastic tale about revenge, absolute power, and the corruption that said power brings forth. The problem is that it is also a game I want to say as little as possible about, because the discovery and investigation is what makes the experience stand out quite a bit. If you love titles like the Ace Attorney series for their puzzlebox-like approach, The Case of the Golden Idol does similar things but makes the logical lines much less obvious. This caused me several times to scream with excitement when all I did was realize who was in what place and why. It really cannot be compared to a visual novel in that sense, giving the power over its narrative to you the player instead. The Return of the Obra Dinn is the closest analogy, but even when I think that, the way that The Case of the Golden Idol uses its world and characters is much more coherent to follow. The tableaus can be dizzying at first, full of moments where you absolutely have no clue what is going on. But figuring that stuff out, realizing why X is here and what that means for Y, or that someone is referring to a moment from a previous tableau made me excited in a way very few detective games have over the last few years.
And even if you do get stuck, the hint system is just a marvelous little bit of accessible design. If you get stuck, the game doesn’t fill in the right words for you. Instead you are presented with some general advice, like laying out all the clues you have, taking a break to think or even recontextualizing the words you’ve found so far. If you want a hint after that, you are still not given one, but rather have to fill out a small test of putting the right words underneath objects and characters you’ve already come across. Then you get to select from four general hints and that hint isn’t even spelling out the answer, but rather suggesting a way to think about the characters and their motivation. It is a truly beautiful system that still wants the player to come to the realization of what has happened, but does not ruin the game. I genuinely hope to see more games employ these kinds of hint systems, because it made using the hint system feel rewarding, rather than a moment of disappointment.
The Nintendo Switch version also just runs great. The variety of control options is fantastic. You can opt for using the traditional touch screen in handheld mode. In TV-mode you can use the joystick to move around a cursor freely and even increase the speed of the cursor movement with the triggers. And finally you can also manually browse through the game just using the directional-buttons or the right stick to snap to the nearest object. This setup is fantastic for controlling a point-and-click adventure game in a way that feels much more natural on console: a fantastic job by the developers for creating this.
As much as I want to keep on gushing about the ideas and stories in The Case of the Golden Idol, I really don’t want to take anything away from those who may be interested in playing it. There is an additional DLC chapter that has even more stories to discover and those are without a doubt some of the hardest puzzles in the game. Even if the idea of a point-and-click adventure game scares you off, The Case of the Golden Idol can be understood and enjoyed by anyone who has an interest in detective fiction. The stories can be gruesome and horrific at times, but that also makes them intriguing puzzleboxes to sit down and solve. At times while playing I looked up at the clock and realized I had been squinting at the screen and was lost in thought solving a puzzle for nearly an hour. The year of narrative bangers just keeps on rolling and if you are even remotely interested in solving a good mystery, The Case of the Golden Idol should be at the top of your list!
Wearing your inspiration on your sleeve isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, I think it’s wonderful that developers can take ideas from successful titles and adjust them to reach new audiences or introduce their own take on similar design ideas. Considering Smushi Come Home as an indie-fied Breath of the Wild is really selling this game short. Its small-scale adventure makes for a breezy and accessible adventure game that is perfect for those looking for a brisk and wholesome experience.
The elevator pitch would go something like this: Smushi and his siblings live on a small little island in the middle of a lake. One day, a bird comes and snatches Smushi away from his family. It’s up to Smushi to travel through the forest and find his way home. Along the way he encounters all sorts of inhabitants of the forest and helps out wherever he can.
Smushi Come Home, at its heart, is a 3D collect-a-thon platformer. You travel around areas in the woods and encounter all sorts of critters that can help you on your way back home. The writing is immediately endearing, capturing the personality of the characters using just text and a tiny sound effect. As you walk, jump, glide and climb around, you can collect crystals to obtain new items and even some cute mushroom caps to change how Smushi looks. The gameplay loop mostly involves you finding certain key items to progress to new areas in the forest.
Looking at the gameplay, you may immediately notice similarities to Breath of the Wild in its stamina and climbing system. But I think that Smushi actually pulls from a lot of different sources. The gliding reminded me of 3D platformers like Rayman 2; the world and writing felt inspired by A Short Hike. The developer has really mixed up several mechanics into what feels like a really solid 3D platformer. You can sense the love and inspiration taken from other titles, but this particular combination makes Smushi really feel like its own game. It is also helped by its soothing visual style, which uses some lovely depth of field effects to make Smushi feel small in this world, as well as the soundtrack, which has some super endearing tracks that make the world welcoming to explore.
I think its strength really lies in the fact that Smushi Come Home knows what type of game it wants to be. It doesn’t feel dragged out with an endless list of quests or items, it doesn’t require perfect precision platforming or lengthy puzzle solving.It is really just a cute and fun 3D platformer that will take you a few hours to complete and left me feeling super satisfied. If you have younger or inexperienced players that may find something like moving around in a 3D space too challenging, find Breath of the Wild controls too intense, or just want to relax with a cozy game, Smushi Come Home is absolutely perfect. In fact, on Switch it even ran at a buttery smooth framerate, something that can’t always be said for other 3D platformers on the system.
Overall Smushi Come Home is the definition of a wholesome experience. Seeing this type of game is becoming a lot more common, but thankfully the remixing of several types of traversal controls makes it stand out on its own. It’s not about speedrunning, collecting hundreds of objects, or even fighting any enemies. Instead, Smushi finds joy in the moments where you can just explore this big world as a tiny little mushroom, making it just feel great to play. For those wanting to have a brief but cozy experience for an afternoon, or if you want to introduce a younger player to what a 3D-platformer is all about, this is one indie you don’t want to miss.
I’ve always felt that you can measure the successful eras of Nintendo’s consoles in two different ways. During the Wii U and GameCube era, Nintendo seemed at times to be more interested in experimentation, whether it was through rhythm games using bongos, or developing a game where the player had to commit to a daily exercise routine using the Balance Board peripheral. However, the enormous success of the Switch hasn’t seen as many of Nintendo’s quirks as we are used to. Instead they’ve been snooping around in their back catalog, looking for older franchises to revive after a long hiatus. This is similar to how during the Wii days we saw sequels to Excitebike and Punch-Out!!. After Mario Strikers and Famicom Detective Club, the GBA classics of Advance Wars and its sequel have been fully remade by the team at WayForward for the Switch. The end result is a satisfying return to a strategic classic that has never felt better to play and offers plenty of missions for new recruits and veterans alike.
Advance Wars is a turn-based strategy game that focuses on the player commanding an army of several units to complete objectives. In a sense you can consider the franchise to be a bit of a counterpart to the Fire Emblem series. Where (modern) Fire Emblem places a lot of focus on individual characters that you control in battle, Advance Wars is a much more straightforward wargame. There is no consistent weapon triangle to consider, but each unit has specific advantages and disadvantages in and out of combat. Tanks, for example, are durable and fast units, but can’t deal with battle copters or battleships very well. Infantry and mechs can be used to capture cities and gain resources but are quickly defeated and usually require transport to help them get to specific locations. Each mission has a carefully designed map that has either a set number of units or allows you to allocate funds towards new units over time. Therefore, there is a lot of emphasis on tactical strategy and making a battle plan instead of simply adapting on the fly. Advance Wars is incredibly rewarding in that aspect; not just by making each encounter feel like a little puzzle in its own right, but by making you the player feel smart and strategic for acting upon a plan you’ve made at the beginning of the map.
That’s not to say that there is no character to the game. Each mission is led by a commanding officer (CO) that has a particular power that helps their units and is also at the heart of Advance Wars’ story. While definitely not winning any writing awards, the characterization of Andy, Sami, Max and their opponents never failed to charm me. The biggest new features are both a map designer that allows you to create your own unique objectives and maps that can be shared online with others. The online multiplayer is also something that will entice strategy fanatics, where you not only pick your preferred CO–each with their own special ability–but also need to think carefully about placing and moving around units. The package offers quite a bit of content for those who like to continue experimenting with the mechanics after the main campaign. Don’t expect any twists to the original source material or gameplay, however. Re-Boot Camp is a very true remake that doesn’t bring any major changes, but mostly nails its presentation and the strategic angle that made the original games cult classics in their own right.
That new visual approach is very fitting, making the experience feel much more like a commanding officer overseeing a battlefield on a map. I’ve seen people compare the aesthetic to that of toy-like war figures, but I think it just adds to the idea that you’re pursuing different battles instead of directly controlling your soldiers and vehicles. As well, the characters themselves have never looked better. While the game doesn’t feature full voice acting, mostly using its extensive voice-cast for opening lines or key phrases, it does help with giving the different COs a lot of personality, especially when activating their unique abilities that come paired with a nice animated cutscene. The UI and interface is very clean, though it did feel a bit too simple at first glance. Many of the ways you can navigate the different battlefield views aren’t really explained; for instance, holding down the B-button on an enemy unit shows their range, which is something that is super helpful and beats navigating through menus to find. At these times, it feels like the games are holding on a bit too tight to their original GBA counterparts, especially releasing so shortly after Fire Emblem: Engage, which felt much more slick in its UI options and navigation tools. Of course, both games have different objectives, with Advance Wars being a bit more traditional and much less focused on the individuality of units being controlled. This felt like a bit of a letdown, since there were many other small improvements that could’ve been made here to add more personality and depth.
The worst offender in my opinion is the frankly dull soundtrack. The same music gets reused quite a bit during missions and when an objective can take upwards of half an hour or more to complete, the audio aspect ends up being super tedious. AW therefore quickly turned into a “podcast-game” for me, where I always wanted something on in the background while playing the game. There’s some fun mixups with the soundtrack when using special abilities, but the main themes all blend together quickly, leaving them with very little impact. What compounds this is that you will be repeating a lot of mission objectives again and again. Some see you simply routing the enemies or capturing the HQ, but there are a few that are more specific ones like defending a particular unit, or being the first army that controls a set number of structures. I think that strategy games are likely to fall into these traps, especially when playing them for prolonged periods of time. Ultimately, taking on one or two missions per day is probably the best way to experience AW. The game is pretty substantial and while I had fun with it, I did turn off the battle animations rather quickly to make the game progress at a faster pace.
Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is exactly what it promises. A polished and fine tuned remake of the original two Advance Wars games. In this package you’ll get two great strategic experiences that come with plenty of missions, objectives, multiplayer modes and even a map creator to keep you entertained for a good long while. Though the music may get a tad repetitive and the game feels best suited for short play sessions, these two games are a great return to form for the Advance Wars series. It does leave me hopeful that the next iteration will put less emphasis on the visual “Re-Boot” and more on the gameplay “Advancement” of this franchise.
I also wrote about how I felt uncomfortable playing Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp in the face of the actual Ukraine war happening in Europe. If you're curious about that, you can read that article here.
I experienced a weird sort of whiplash with the announcement and release of Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp (AW). Not only was the game’s release postponed twice, with all signs pointing towards a largely finished title, but the major cause of its primary delay was an event that at first had little to do with the game itself. The illegal war and subsequent invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces that began in 2022, arguably earlier when considering the invasion in 2014 of the Crimea, put Nintendo in an uncomfortable position. Not only when thinking about their family-friendly brand, but also how possibly some of the original designs of opposing forces in Advance Wars could resemble modern countries. God-forbid Nintendo would take a stance during an illegal war that has killed over 350.000 people since it began. Now, Re-Boot Camp has finally arrived and while it is certainly a fine strategic title that honors the original games it has remade, it also left me feeling hollow while playing it. A war is taking place as I am writing this, less than a day's drive away (comparable to the distance from Miami to Philadelphia). “Ïn light of recent world events'' may have postponed this release, but these events are still looming over these advance wars.
About two hours into Advance Wars 1+2 Re-Boot: Camp, the latest long overdue Nintendo franchise revival, I decided to turn off the battle animations. The world of Advance Wars sees you navigating a globe as you guide the ‘Orange Star Army’ through several other nations such as “Blue Moon” (vaguely inspired by Russia), “Golden Comet” (taking influence from Japan) and “Green Earth” (seemingly based on Germany) completing objectives. Each nation has its own type of terrain, but certain landmarks always return like mountains that provide a high altitude, woods that give cover, and cities and bases that can be captured to gain additional resources. Every time you select one of your units, be they infantry or vehicles, your platoon fights in a little battle on whatever type of terrain you are encountering the opponent. Not only does this take up a considerable amount of time during the game, there was also something off while watching the little cutscenes.
As your little platoon enters the city to fight an opposing force, the camera zooms in from a world map overview to a little ‘’diorama’’ that shows the attacking army firing upon the opposing threat. After gunfire is exchanged, the defeated vehicles or people are blasted away and the camera returns to the world map and sees a little explosion, indicating the defeat of a platoon. The background of this cutscene changes depending on the terrain, such as in the city where the fighting takes place on the streets next to buildings and streetlights.
It was this particular scene, which lasts no more than ten seconds, that made me feel uncomfortable. Because every time that camera perspective changed I did not see tiny little 3D models shooting comedic fire at a fake video game enemy. The images of people fearing for their lives, in a place they called home days or even weeks before, kept on flashing through my mind instead.
See, Nintendo may think that the time is right to release this game that is about warfare given ‘current world events’, but while playing I often thought about the cruelty of war that is simply cleaned off in games like this. We can pretend that the invasion of Ukraine has passed its peak in media coverage and is now another of so many ‘background conflicts’, that it starts to feel like the new normal. But it is beyond scary that I live on a continent where an active war is now playing out. The idea that one day a madman woke up and decided to put an entire continent into chaos is something that I think we in Europe will never be able to truly process. I’m not closely or personally tied to Ukraine, but it looms over every aspect of life here on a daily basis. I go out to do grocery shopping and can’t get something as simple as cooking oil because importing sunflower seeds has halted. I turn on the news and see images of people who were living in a similar situation as I am today, having to take shelter in dim dark-lit basements to avoid the literal bombs dropping on their cities. And that’s not even to think about the anxiety of having a possible continental war with Russia if the conflict escalates. In the end, this is nothing compared to the actual horrors that Ukrainians have to deal with on a daily basis. Staying and choosing to survive and fight this invasion, knowing that the rest of the world cannot just intervene, fearing for their own safety.
I’m fully aware that games like Call of Duty, Battlefield and other games about war have kept on releasing ever since the start of the invasion. Those games have plenty of issues on their own, from the depiction of actual war crimes, to the treatment of minorities and non-US allies and opponents. It is not like I am expecting Nintendo of all game companies to lead this charge towards presenting a more in-depth take on the themes or war in their video games. But for a company that rarely ventures into the realm of games depicting actual warfighting and prefers to opt for the fantastical in Fire Emblem, the science-fiction in a Xenoblade Chronicles or the comical in a Splatoon, I was so much more aware of how spineless the storytelling and context is in Advance Wars. Especially when contrasted with something like Fire Emblem: Engage, which has several scenes of the characters reflecting on the horrors of war and what the human cost is of these conflicts. There is an extensive story and cutscene in Engage about the destruction of villages by the opposing forces and what this means to the characters fighting this war. When characters are defeated their death can feel meaningful or their loss is tragic in both a contextual sense of having one less unit to fight with, but also because their defeat is felt by your other allies. In my opinion the solution is not to simply ‘stop making games about wars’, but rather use that framework as a way to tell a story that reflects on what war actually means. How a war starts and in what ways it can even be fought can not only make for a more engaging experience, but possibly even leave the player with a way to process their own feelings on war and the politics surrounding them.
Advance Wars at times feels insulting in the way it simplifies and polishes the warfighting experience. I know full well that these games haven’t been designed with this goal in mind, but it isn’t like wars in *checks notes* 2001 weren’t full of horrors and casualties. The image of the squeaky clean red tanks rolling into a city to fire a few blasts at opposing enemy soldiers just does not feel entertaining to me anymore. Those cities aren’t backdrops for the people still living in them. I have seen the images of people standing near the ruins of their homes, looking for survivors, treasured possessions or even basic necessities. Advance Wars in 2023 just does not click in the same way as it did back in the early 2000’s. It is such a simple outlook on the complexities of war, the human costs behind invasions and the actual consequences when the tanks have crushed the roads and only have left destruction behind. As much fun as Andy, Max, Sami and Nell are, I never stopped thinking: “Are they aware that they are invading other nations and literally bombing down cities? And if so, why are they not reflecting on what is actually happening”?
By not taking a stance, Advance Wars feels more toothless than ever in its theming. Especially during a time where taking a stance, where reflecting on the ways wars are fought and won is more crucial than ever before. Nintendo may have wanted to keep politics desperately out of the release of these two games, but it has only made it more apparent to me how flimsy the actual wars in “Advance Wars'' feel. Hopefully next time it won’t just be another Re-boot camp, but a fundamental rethinking of what Advance Wars is and can be about. Inspiration for that should not be hard to find.
I think at this point I can safely say that 3D platformers are probably my favorite genre out there. There is something so fundamentally satisfying about walking around, exploring all kinds of worlds, interacting with objects and making my own way through a carefully designed level while getting more and more comfortable with the moveset at my disposal. From Neon White’s high-paced action, to the more combat-focused experience of Blue Fire, to the creativity on display in A Hat in Time, and that’s just accounting for the ones not created by juggernauts like Nintendo themselves or even Rareware back in the day. Clive ‘n Wrench truly wishes to be among those reclaiming the 3D platformers from the late 90’s and early 2000’s. But the experience leaves a lot to be desired from both a fundamental level as well as this particular version on the Nintendo Switch.
Clive ‘N Wrench sees you controlling the titular characters on a quest through time and space to stop the evil Dr. Draucus, who has been traveling throughout time to spread his evil elixir and gain world domination. Thankfully Clive’s sister Nancy has created a time-machine which enables you to travel to the past, collect pocket watches to fix the space-time continuum and stop the evildoers that have aligned with the Doctor. The game began development over ten years ago by a single developer, Rob Wass. The game is pretty packed with content, there’s an abundance of worlds to explore with each one designed after a different time period or theme. On the surface it truly feels like one of the 3D platformers from the golden age at the tail end of the 90’s and 2000’s when character platformers were everywhere.
The thing about character-based platformers is that usually they rely on their characters to a certain extent to keep the player engaged. Yes, franchises like Mario and Sonic had a bit of an advantage, making their jump to 3D after their characters were long established, but especially for the wave of 3D platformers that came after them, character was everything. I don’t think that series like Crash Bandicoot, Banjo-Kazooie, Conker and Rayman would have been as successful if not for their unique design and personality. Clive ‘N Wrench really feels as thin as paper in this sense. While the worldbuilding and designs are fine, during gameplay there is very little to make you feel attached to Clive, Wrench, Nancy and any of the other supporting characters that show up. The one exception might be the bosses, who each get a dedicated cutscene before you engage with them, but even then there is a real lack of explanation of why they are involved in this. The entire setup of the world and the reason for events happening feels like an afterthought, and what does not help is that the cutscenes in particular are rather horrendous to look at. Lots of exaggerated movements that are designed to come across as cartoony feel still and slow and lack the dynamic range that conveys a connection to the player. That’s not even speaking of the writing and text boxes which simply pop-in and dump the same text every time you engage with them. I was especially annoyed when I returned to the main hub world after clearing four worlds and Nancy would still say that I should go to the ‘orientation’ level to learn how to control Clive and Wrench. It made me lose interest in the world and character very quickly.
Of course, mentioning the story for a 3D platformer isn’t doing the game justice. Because what truly matters at the end of the day is how these characters control and feel while playing them. In terms of pure control I think that the best point of comparison would be a game like A Hat in Time, but feeling a tad more floaty and a bit more imprecise in its execution. Aside from the standard jump, double jump, spin-attack, ground pound and ‘helicopter whirl’ (using Wrench as the literal helicopter), there is very little that sets apart the moveset of the main characters. There is a super jump that can be executed as either a backflip or by holding the R-button. It feels slightly too overpowered, but can be combined with the double jump and the helicopter whirl to traverse long distances. The real issue is in how controlling the characters feel. Oftentimes the game comes across as too sluggish, where you really can’t gauge well if you’ll actually make a particular jump and at what point you should try to find a safe landing spot. There is the implication that you can combine a sort of slide jump to gain speed, but it never felt particularly satisfying.
That is before you even consider the level design, which mostly feels restrictive due to the levels being broken up into several segments.While I like the theming and attention to detail in these worlds there are some weird structural decisions that hamper the experiences. In each level you go around and find upwards of ten ancient stones (the power stars of this game). Most of them are achieved by helping characters with particular quests or finding them scattered around in the level. The real issue is that there really isn’t that much variety in gaining them. Catch the running rabbit? You get a stone. Do a ground pound on a particular button? Obtain a stone. Destroy X amount of objects? You get a stone. Of course, games like Super Mario Sunshine have similar structures, but because of the way levels are set up, the repetitiveness of the game really gets in the way of making these quests enjoyable. It also means interacting with characters and as stated before that gets quite tedious. I think what really could’ve helped here was if levels weren’t restricted to you finding a set amount of ancient stones to allow you to beat a boss and only after beating them unlocking the next world. This game is very lineair in that structure, and while that isn’t a problem on its face, it does mean that you will need to both explore each world at least until you’ve found enough stones and beat the bosses of each world, which are locked behind a specific stone requirement. Also the bosses just suck.
The bosses are some of the most disappointing I’ve faced in a game. They can’t be tackled out of order, and the first one you’ll encounter is incredibly difficult. It feels much like a Crash Bandicoot boss where you need to position yourself around the stage to make him throw scissors at ropes that make an anvil come down on its head. The problem is that unlike a boss in a Mario game, you aren’t locked to a 2D plane, but are still dealing with movement in 3D. This means you can still jump off the platform without meaning to, while projectiles are shooting all around you. There are also no health pickups in this boss fight, so if you inevitably lose, the boss fight immediately resets, giving the player far too little time to respond to the game-over and getting stuck in a pretty frustrating loop. The other bosses don’t fare too well either, with each having their own gimmick, but doing very little to justify the hardship you have to deal with as a player. They are just incredibly sudden difficulty spikes and while I am a seasoned player, I cannot fathom younger players enjoying these boss fights and not having a way to get past them to experience other levels.
I should clarify that I do not think that Clive ‘N Wrench is unplayable. The game is fine, but on Switch it looks really really bad. At times you could be mistaken that you’re watching an actual GameCube game, because of the stiff animation, the terrible draw distances in particular in the larger stages and the way models and lighting interact with one another. When I saw the first footage of the game in action a few years back, I was really impressed with the way it was turning out, but this Switch version is really a downgrade in almost every possible sense. The one thing I will say for it, is that the game runs at a stable frame-rate. Ignoring pop-in, animation, the lack of shadows, proper lighting and just very back looking character models, that is something going for it. Really, if you crave portability the game sure functions and may be fun for a few pick up and play sessions, but I think that this version doesn’t do any justice to the design and intent of Clive ‘N Wrench.
And I think that that is what stings the most. Because even while I felt mostly nothing while playing Clive ‘N Wrench, I did get a sense that this was truly a passion project from a single creator. This game is just the biggest swing and it’s a shame that it is mostly a miss. You can sense that there was so much care and design put into the game and its worlds. But it almost feels like it is cracking under its own weight from the very beginning. As if levels that were designed ten years ago are still part of this game, even though they fully exemplify why Clive ‘N Wrench is not a lot of fun to play. Worlds are either too big or too cramped. Characters are stuck in the same eternal loop while engaging with them in the level and show no growth. There’s no way to expand your moves and actions or any power ups to change up the gameplay. There’s a neat way to detect if you’re missing pocket watches, but there’s no reward in a level for finding them all, making them feel pointless. Clive ‘N Wrench attempts to revive the 3D platformer, but ultimately shows how the trappings of the genre made it die in the first place. All around while exploring levels, it feels like there is a lack of focus. A wish to perform like a jack of all trades, but ultimately barely mastering the fundamentals of proper movement in a 3D space. I do not think that this game is entirely bad or a complete mess, but it is the missed potential that stings. It is a plea to sometimes take a step back and fundamentally understand what your work should be about. Sure, there is enjoyment to be had, but much like a fast food meal I will not be thinking about Clive ‘n Wrench much in the future.
I don’t think I’ve seen a developer video as charming as the original preview for A Little to the Left, a puzzle game developed by Max Inferno. In the video the two developers of the game showcase their game and the household objects that inspired it. Of course,it also features their cat who has a prominent role in the game. The premise and trailer was absolutely excellent, which made it all the more disappointing that A Little to the Left left me feeling with very little by the end of its short runtime.
Little to the Left is designed around household objects that form little puzzles. For people that are obsessed with stuff like symmetrical shapes or fitting stuff neatly into boxes you will feel right at home. The puzzles don’t have a clear explanation or even a title to let you know what you need to do to find the solution. Sometimes it's a stack of books that you can move around until they are all neatly aligned, other times you have to fit all kinds of cutlery into a drawer by figuring out in which tray they are supposed to go. It makes for some incredibly creative puzzles that all have their roots in household objects, which makes them far more relatable than most puzzles in video games. I especially enjoyed that some puzzles can have multiple solutions. For example you can sort those books by their size and shape or you can arrange them by color. The game only rates you at the end of a puzzle by showing how many possible solutions there actually are, which makes going back and figuring out other solutions a lot of fun.
The big twist that A Little to the Left presents the player with is the cat that lives in the home where you are solving the puzzles. Sometimes when trying to solve certain puzzles the cat comes in and attempts to play with your puzzle objects. Whether it's grabbing a piece of the puzzle and dragging it away, or swiping its tail across the screen and messing up your attempted solution. This ‘hurdle’ is incredibly charming as well as frustrating. Seeing all your hard work being knocked over by a curious cat can be a little disheartening. Thankfully the effect is never too bothersome and random enough to not block every single puzzle.
As puzzles progress A Little to the Left becomes more and more abstract in its solutions and questions. The space of household objects changes to moving around planets and other high-concept materials. As much fun as this can be, this is kind of where my interest in the game started to wane. This also in part because the Nintendo Switch version of the game, especially in docked mode, controls rather awkwardly. You have to use a cursor or buttons to select objects before being able to move them around. It feels surprisingly cumbersome to drag and drop objects around, even when increasing the movement speed of the cursor. In handheld mode some of these problems are fixed due to the use of the touch screen, but any control that is tied to a gamepad just makes the game less fun to play. And while the puzzles are very creative, I was often relying a bit too much on the hint system to figure out what I was supposed to be doing. Some difficulty spikes are unexpected and the order of puzzles can feel a bit unbalanced. You’d think the harder puzzles would’ve been saved for later but they appear frequently early on in new chapters and formed some pretty hefty roadblocks until I decided to use the hint system.
Overall I found A Little to the Left to be enjoyable in the moment, but after playing I rarely have thought about the game since. The puzzles are very clever and the way they are seemingly integrated into real life objects and locations makes A Little to the Left stand out from many other puzzle games. It should be very accessible to people who do not play a lot of games, even though I felt that by the end that the game had run out of steam and felt a bit too abstract for its own good. While the Switch version performs fine enough, the controls did feel like a drag when using a gamepad, which caused me to play the game in handheld mode with touch screen controls. A Little to the Left has a clear and unique identity among other puzzle games and while it won’t last you an entire weekend there is enough here for those looking for a new type of puzzling challenge.
There's a word in Dutch that has no real translation into English. The word "Gezellig" could be described as 'having a good time', "cozy", or even "enjoyable". It means most of these things altogether, but is hard to explain in another language. You can say a lot of things about the new comedic indie game Once Upon A Jester. It's a short rhythm game, in which improv is the central theme. But above all I got the feeling that the development of the game and the team that worked on it was incredibly 'Gezellig'. While it may come across as clunky at times, there's so much heart and joy poured into this game that shouldn't be missed if you're looking for a truly wholesome experience.
In the game you play as Jester who, along with his best friend Sok, decides to participate in "The Royal Theatrical Spectacle". This contest, organized by Princess Kirstina, sees theater groups competing for 15 flower bouquets in three different towns in order to play a show for the king himself. Jester and Sok however see this as a great opportunity to steal the royal diamond, the most sparkly object in all the land. It's up to the player to perform improv shows based on themes that the townsfolk will enjoy that particular day. After designing a poster, you'll perform the show and have to participate in little rhythmic minigames to interact with Sok on stage.
The gameplay is admittedly very simple. You walk around town, talk to the inhabitants and learn more about what they want. It's these characters and writing that provides the incredible charm that makes Once Upon A Jester stand out so much. The dialogue ranges from puns, comments on the absurdity of the world as well as the changes that Jester and his friends go through on their journey. This makes every little background character super memorable from the walking tree Boom Stam looking for his roots, to the three little ice cream boys, the fisherman by the sea, Jan the Wizard, and Mayor Kletsmajoor. As you can tell by the names, these characters are very very Dutch and being a Dutchy myself, it was a joy to behold all the quirky little puns that the team translated into English as well as the design of the world. This includes town names like Dorp Town (Town Town), Woud Woods (Wood Woods) and Zeehaven Harbour (Seaharbour Harbour), plus other little details like characteristic Dutch lanterns and all of the background chatter during songs and the overworld.
Music is also such an important aspect of the game. At times it is almost akin to something like the animated show 'Over the Garden Wall', where characters burst out into short comedic songs about how they're feeling or what is happening. The dry and direct delivery of characters like Jester and Sok stands in stark contrast with the elaborate monologues which makes the world feel very abstract, but also welcoming and comfortable. This ties back masterfully into the feeling of actually performing improv theater. While there's only a handful of shows, the decisions you make along the way change the outcome of every performance. This makes the game feel surprisingly refreshing, even when putting on "Statue Sok" for the fourth time. The same can also be said for the voice acting. While the on-screen text is always perfectly readable, every character and interaction is fully voiced by the development team. You can often hear that the team went with the first take and if you ask me,it works great. You hear the laughter when lines are mispronounced or when particular accents or puns were voiced. It is almost as if you're in the room with the team and they’re making it up as they go along.
Seeing Dutch culture portrayed in (international) games is still a rarity but it was a joy to see how well Bonte Avond has transitioned Dutch culture and in particular its humor into an interactive title. The dry and direct responses from the characters are unmistakably Dutch. And yes, there’s obviously a personal connection between me and that particular topic. But even disregarding that, the game feels so honest and is super confident in what it is, similar to how an improv actor performs on stage. The game doesn't skip a beat in its short but sweet runtime and I think that makes for a genuine experience that I haven't had in quite some time. It may just be one of the best titles to play along with someone who isn't too familiar with games. The humor, low stakes and easy to understand gameplay makes for a great introduction into interactive media.
A small nitpick I have is that videos in the Switch version could be optimized just a little. The end credits and one great cut-away gag were undercut by choppy performance on the system. And while the replayability of the shows is pretty varied, I would have loved to see two more shows with some creative set-pieces.
Other than that, Once Upon A Jester feels absolutely gezellig. From the live-performed songs to the funny writing and memorable characters, Jester and Sok's journey is one I would heartily recommend and makes my Dutch heart incredibly proud.
I’ve been a lifelong LEGO fan for as long as I can remember. From the physical bricks to their admittedly mixed outings in video games, LEGO has survived for decades by being inventive and using strategic licenses. LEGO Builder’s Journey released last year and was a great little puzzle game that used the mechanics of LEGO pieces themselves to tell a simple and creative story. LEGO Bricktales is mechanically more complex, but feels like a close approximation of the inventiveness that LEGO is known for. For adults it might be a tad too repetitive, but if played alongside a younger family member, this game is just delightful.
In LEGO Bricktales, you control your custom made avatar who has visited his inventor grandpa. Due to several hijinks, he’s lost power to his theme park. It’s up to you to travel through his portal and visit several different worlds to obtain happiness crystals by helping out people in need. As you traverse various locations like a jungle and a desert, you come across people who need your creative building skills to help them out. Gameplay transitions between exploration segments, which are similar in design to Builder’s Journey, where you control the character through little LEGO dioramas. You can explore little caves or walk behind structures to find secrets and additional puzzles. Then there’s the puzzle segments, where you have to build structures from LEGO in any way you imagine.
Each structure you build in the puzzle segments is completely open to your own design. You start out a puzzle with a specific selection of bricks, but are free to stack, rotate or place them however you want as long as it is within the allocated building space. It could be as simple as recreating a statue, rebuilding a bridge or market stand, or even designing a colorful theme park attraction. In order to solve the puzzle, it needs to withstand a simulation test. A robot will attempt to cross the gaps using the bridge you created and that will provide feedback whether you need to tweak the design to withstand the weight or movement. A simple 2x4 bridge needs support in order to help the robot cross the gaps for instance; a zipline needs both to be in balance and have a little roof for the connection as well. Each puzzle builds, pun intended, on top of previous designs you’ve created. After the completion of a puzzle, you’re free to move on to creatively enhance your build by using any bricks you like. You can swap colors, add more creative components or fully design the puzzle however you want.
What I especially like about LEGO Bricktales is that it always makes you think of the physicality of the bricks themselves. You can stack on top of or underneath the bricks by positioning them most effectively. It’s a hard transition from a physical act, like connecting LEGO bricks, to a digital environment, but the folks over at ClockStone Software have done a marvelous job at recreating what it’s like to build to your heart's content as well as accounting for the way weight and movement would impact a build. This makes each puzzle feel quite unique, even though you will be designing quite a few bridges and connecting places.
I did find some of the toolkit a bit disorienting. While the controls work great most of the time, positioning a brick within the three-dimensional space can be quite a challenge. This is especially true if you start out with an easy build and have to redo certain parts because of the physics that impact it. Moving around bricks is easy enough and you can use the D-pad to connect bricks above or below a piece that’s already placed, but oftentimes, moving back and forth from the available pieces to the construction zone did get a bit tedious. I also felt that because the game doesn’t reward creativity, I found myself quickly making the fastest and easiest buildings, just to get from point A to B faster. The puzzles here can sometimes feel like a harsh break from the exploration segments in the game and made me want to breeze through them to go back to exploration. If you’re in a relaxed mood, the game accommodates this fairly well, but if you want to rush through the puzzles the pacing can work a bit against you.
Ultimately, while the core mechanics are as solid as the plastic the bricks are made of, the general presentation leaves a bit to be desired. From the surprisingly large number of textboxes to explain the dialogue, to the very boring UI and graphical interface, it feels like the game lacks a bit of polish. The LEGO aspect is absolutely on point with the dioramas using studs and flat pieces for some gorgeous designs in the various worlds, but this makes the UI stick out all the more. On Switch especially, it’s almost like you’re playing a game that’s designed for tablets and while the game runs great on the system, that makes the end product feel a little bit cheap and inconsistent at times. This goes for the music as well, which does a fine enough job to complement the settings and worlds, but leaves little impact on the overall experience.
That said, LEGO Bricktales is probably a fantastic game to play alongside younger players. For kids, the whimsical style of the characters and worlds would be a great introduction to puzzle games that encourage creativity, especially with a child’s excitement over going back to earlier builds and re-designing them to their heart’s content. While the normal LEGO games are all about action and cooperation, Bricktales’s focus on creativity and puzzle solving makes it feel more grounded than the fantastical LEGO Star Wars and Marvel games. This is a game anyone with an understanding of the toy can pick up and enjoy. While a more mature single player will probably not stick around too long, this is one that families will definitely appreciate on whatever platform they choose to play.
Youropa was revealed all the way back in August of 2019. The puzzle game was part of an Indie World presentation and I even got to play around with it at Gamescom that year. While attempting to tie together multiple unique ideas taken from a lot of inspirations, Youropa unfortunately didn’t manage to leave an impact on me. While its puzzles are inventive and it has an interesting aesthetic, the slow pace and progression make Youropa feel like it's at the end of its rope far too quickly.
I remember as a kid playing around with a toy that was a blank action figure that you could draw on top of using wipeable markers. In a sense, Youropa has a similar protagonist. You play as a nameless blank figure with a large head. At the beginning of the day Paris is upended by a gravity distorting event that leaves the city in floating disconnected pieces. It’s up to you to reconnect these floating pieces of the city and solve puzzles to provide them with power. The twist is that you can distort gravity by walking over rounded edges and slopes, which causes gravity to twist and turn with your perspective. The best shorthand for this is how you can walk on the edges of planetoids in Super Mario Galaxy to reach the bottom side of the same planet. However, when you step off a ledge, gravity returns to normal and you fall to your doom. Aside from this being the main mechanic, each district has its own set of puzzles and mechanics giving you new abilities to explore these floating rocks.
If you’re into physics based puzzle games like Portal, The Talos Principle or The Turing Test, Youropa is probably a game you’ll love playing around with. As much as most puzzles boil down to 'provide power to the switch‘ or ‘open a door by placing an object on a button’, the gravity-mechanic always feels engaging and required to solve these puzzles. Placing a box on a grounded floor and then walking up the same wall to grab that box from the wall to carry it upwards feels pretty inventive for a genre that tends to rely on performing the same task countless times before reaching the end.
But with Youropa its not the mechanics that start to wear thin but its lack of character and personality. The blank protagonist you play around with can be recolored using stickers, paint and all sorts of decorative items. But the character rarely feels like you. There’s an option to share creations online with other players, but even when finding these designs it never made me really connect with the world or its inhabitants. From the alien looking enemies that resemble dogs and giants to its floating levels that have great puzzles but become a slog to traverse. The movement is slow and this makes puzzles feel like they take far longer than they need to. Especially when more physics based puzzles come around the corner and you’re required to line up items with the right angle before kicking or tossing them across edges. The game also employs frequent game overs, meaning that you often have to restart levels when enemies push you off the edge and have to start at the last door you’ve accessed. It’s not bad per se, but it tended to wear me down quickly while playing the game.
What I did find interesting was the many hidden collectibles in each level and their unlocks. If you find three mixtapes in each level you get additional parts. These parts can be used in the custom level creator, which allows anyone to play around with building their own levels and sharing them online. It’s a surprisingly extensive level editor and there’s quite a bit of attention put into the learning of how you can combine and extend levels to create full worlds. It’s great that the game is about inspiring collaboration, sharing and creating a world together. But it wasn’t a particular aspect of the game that enticed me, mainly because I think most levels already do a great enough job of exploring the game’s mechanics and I didn’t feel like tossing my own head in the ring because of that sluggish pacing.
Thankfully the game runs good enough on Switch. While not a locked framerate, the game uses some nice shaders and lighting effects that make it stand out from the rest. It’s just a shame that your weird avatar will probably look very out of place among the photorealistic textures of Parisian streets and objects.
Youropa left me feeling quite ambivalent about the final product. As a puzzle game it has some clever mechanics and explores them with plenty of abilities to extend your playing experience for quite some time. However it must be said that this playtime feels extended by a sluggish pace that makes exploration and even some of the puzzle solving feel exhausting at times. The game runs good enough on Switch and for those who like trying their hand at creating games or levels of their own, Youropa has plenty to offer here. But if you’re looking for something with its own personality or a story that will keep you engaged while solving these puzzles, you’re going to have to pull some other strings.
It’s been a long three years, but finally Gamescom returned this year as an in-person event in Cologne, Germany. Gamescom is the largest gaming convention in the world. E3 may be catching the most eyeballs, but the sheer size and attendance of the event in Cologne blows it out of the water. Though the overall event was as much fun as it has always been, it did feel rather empty in comparison to previous years. Mostly due to some of the largest publishers deciding to not attend the event this year for various reasons. Sony, Activision-Blizzard, Square-Enix, EA and yes even Nintendo forgoed attending the event, which made a lot of smaller publishers and developers pick up the slack. Honestly, they did a fantastic job and while I haven’t played all these games on Switch hardware, I still wanted to share my overall impressions from seeing a ton of new games making their way (eventually) to the Nintendo Switch. The games below are listed in alphabetical order and will have a description of what system I played them on or was given a hands-off demo for. So come with me on my journey to Germany and let’s see what you need to look out for on Switch in the upcoming months.
Anger Foot - Hands-on Demo [PC]
Developers: Free Lives
Publisher: Devolver Digital
One Sentence Pitch: Hotline Miami in First-Person
Pounding beats, a maddening difficulty and an intensity that I don’t think was matched by anything else at Gamescom. Anger Foot is the next game from the team behind , Genital Jousting and Broforce. In Anger Foot you interact with the world by kicking everything in your path. From breaking down doors, to destroying enemies to cranking valves. The controls feel precise and responsive and each kick has a… well, kick to it. You make your way to the end of the level by killing all the enemies that stand in your way. The AI felt pretty merciless and will do anything to kill you. You can also pick up weapons to shoot with, or throw them to stun enemies. It really feels like playing a version of Hotline Miami in first-person. The world design is pretty colorful, with a lot of visual gags and unique enemy-designs. I will say that playing the demo did feel pretty exhausting after a while. You die in one hit, so the game truly becomes a matter of trial and error and knowing where enemies are located to optimize your run. It’s going to be fun to see the speedrunning community pick up this game and go nuts with it. While Anger Foot hasn’t been announced for Switch yet, it wouldn’t surprise me to see this game make the jump to the hybrid console. It would be kick-ass to play this on the go sometime in the future.
Backbeat - Hands-off Demo [PC]
Developers: Ichigoichie Inc.
Publisher:Ichigoichie Inc.
One Sentence Pitch: A musical puzzler that combines XCOM with timeline management.
If you have played Ichigoichie’s previous game Hexagroove Tactical DJ, you know that their knowledge and expertise lies in building on top of musical concepts. Using multiple musical systems that each impact one another and make you learn and perfect their mechanics. While Backbeat has a completely different approach than Hexagroove, it is still without a doubt an Ichigoichie game. Backbeat follows the story of Watts, who in 1995 decides to put together her own band to compete in a battle of the bands. The style is very pleasing and sees you controlling each character from an isometric point of view. The goal of each level is quite simple, move all the characters to the end goal and avoid being caught by guards. The trick is that these puzzles all follow the rules of the timeline in the top-left corner of the screen. Meaning you only have so many turns to move around and play each stage. Each character has their own movement pattern that impacts the puzzles. Some characters can move multiple squares, while others only move around once. Sometimes there are obstacles that need to be dealt with, by having a certain character control a gate or using their special ability to pass by guards. You may be wondering where the musical-aspect comes from then. The game is designed in such a way that the movement and direction of each character influences the music being played. This is also how you are graded at the end of a level. Making a turn at the right beat increases your score and actions. There’s a lot of mechanics and components going on at the same time, but whereas I was often getting confused by Hexagroove’s more intense mechanics and timing, Backbeat gives you time to think over your actions and rewind in case you want to try something else. This gives it a really unique vibe that is definitely something that puzzle and strategy-fans should keep their eye out for. In addition, the game’s soundtrack is killer with a lot of funk and jazz influences that use a live recording that makes the world and characters come alive. Also, be sure to check out their website if you want to relive that 90’s nostalgia the game is going for.
One Sentence Pitch: Feels right at home after the original.
I can be very blunt here. If you liked Coffee Talk, you’ll love Coffee Talk - Episode 2 without a doubt. The game has retained its visual novel-like structure with some refinements in the interactive elements and some new ingredients for the coffee bar. The writing is still excellent and the new characters I got to meet in this demo definitely made me very curious to see what else episode 2 has brewing. I really liked the interaction between Lucas the Faun and the Banshee Riona and it was great to see Jorji the officer return as well. The Switch version seemed to run quite well, although there was some noticeable stuttering during the serving of the drinks. Nothing a bit of optimization can’t fix and the game is still on track to release sometime in 2023. I’ve already put in my order and can’t wait to chug down this drink once it arrives.
Desta: The Memories Between - Hands-on demo [iOS]
Developers: UsTwo Games
Publisher: UsTwo Games/Netflix Games
One Sentence Pitch: A roguelike turn-based dodgeball game that is accessible for anyone.
I will immediately admit that the first reveal of Desta: The Memories Between did not grab me. There’s a legacy behind UsTwo Games (creators of Alba: A Wildlife Adventure and more notably Monument Valley), but that first trailer just did very little for me to explain what the game was about. Thankfully after getting hands on with the game for a good twenty minutes I am happy to report that I have come around on this opinion and Desta is shaping up to be something really unique. In this game you traverse different dreams, in which you choose different characters to play a game of magical dodgeball. The game uses a turn-based combat system where each character can perform multiple actions and uses their own special abilities to control and fire the dodgeball. Just like in actual dodgeball, the goal is to hit your opponents with the ball. Trick-shows are definitely encouraged and the way in which the systems build on top of one another is very impressive. Desta’s ability allows them, for example, to gain an additional action if they end their turn holding the ball. But there’s also a character like Jack, who can teleport across the map at the cost of two action points. I also like how the shooting of the ball is an actual mechanic. On the tablet I played I needed to pull back the ball like a slingshot and fire it at the opponent. It gives you very precise control of the ball and I can see how this encourages multiple styles of play. While I didn’t get too much of a feel for the story, it is definitely heavy on the narrative as the characters you meet during the day, will later show up in Desta’s dreams as playable characters. Finally the soft colors and cell-shaded look makes the game a joy to look at as well. Not too surprising from the team behind Monument Valley, but moving the camera around and finding the optimal dodgeball angle never felt boring or repetitive. The game comes to Netflix Games first later in the year, so if you happen to have a Netflix Subscription, you can definitely give the game a spin there first. The Switch version will follow at some point in the future.
Figment 2: Creed Valley - Hands-On demo [PC]
Developers: Bedtime Digital Games
Publisher: Bedtime Digital Games
One Sentence Pitch: A Narrative action-puzzler with some catchy tunes.
While I haven’t played the original Figment, this demo grabbed my attention with its beautiful art-design. You play as Dusty as you run around in a world that’s designed after the human mind. In a similar way to something like Psychonauts, you deal with several mental issues plaguing the mind. From somber thoughts that creep up and block paths, to manifestations that hurt the mind in more proactive ways. In the demo I was chasing around a large swine that was causing harm. The only method of defeating it was luring it into the lights that would cause it to transform back into a little piglet. The main gameplay combines combat and puzzle solving and the developers mention that it is a great game for parents to play with their children. The puzzles in the demo weren’t too challenging, but for a younger player it will definitely be enticing. The game also features a companion system, similar to the two-player mode in Super Mario Odyssey, where one player controls Dusty and the other controls Piper, a flying friend that can help the player at any time. Most impressive was the boss battle and sound design, something that feels akin to musical bosses from something like Mario + Rabbids or Conker’s Bad Fur Day. This game is certainly something to look forward to if you want a more straightforward action-adventure game that heavily relies on its music and design.
Gori: Cuddly Carnage - Hands-on Demo [PC]
Developers: Angry Demon Studio
Publisher: Wired Productions
One Sentence Pitch: What if Devil May Cry and Tony Hawk Pro Skater had a furry baby together?
All things considered, Gori: Cuddly Carnage was the biggest surprise of the show for me. Especially funny after the release of Stray earlier this year, Gori sees you playing as the titular character. A cat using a transforming hoverboard that is equipped with blades and swords. Traveling through Neon-lit cities and sequences, you fight all sorts of bizarre monsters in a world that hasn’t been too kind to humans. In this demo I was mostly chasing a nightmarish creature that was sending waves of unicorns to stop me. The game is a third person action game in which movement just feels incredibly satisfying. From grinding on rails of light, to wallrunning against neon billboards to just using the dashes and jumps to clear gaps, the game feels super tight to play. At times it feels like a proper 3D Sonic game that isn’t hampered down by the need to move at blistering speeds. This also allows combat to flow a bit more naturally. Though I did find some of the enemy encounters a tad too repetitive, the overall style and methods in which you can dispose of enemies feels fantastic. Especially once you throw upgrades into the mix like the use of a shield, ranged attacks and parries. The game is surprisingly violent, so don’t let its cute exterior knock you off guard. Playing Gori was just a great time. My one reservation is to see how this game will perform when it makes its way to Switch. One of the developers was definitely hesitant, since the Switch version will require quite a few compromises. But don’t let that get you down. If you’re into 3D action games don’t let Gori skate you by!
Jackbox Party Pack 9 - Hands-on Demo [PC]
Developers:Jackbox Games
Publisher:Jackbox Games
One Sentence Pitch:More games, a good pack, you know what to expect.
I don’t think I need to explain to anyone what the Jackbox Party Pack is. These collections of varied party games that can be played with anyone via online devices have been a staple of gaming streamers for years now. The 9th edition of the party pack comes with five new games, including the 4th version of one of the most popular games, Fibbage. While we were given explanations for all the five games, I ended up getting a full hands-on playthrough of one of the five games. There’s definitely a nice balance of creativity and ingenuity on display here. From Roomerang, in which you play a reality TV show and try to stay in the game for as long as possible. Junktopia, which sees you trying to sell all sorts of unique items by giving the item an elaborate backstory and history and thereby increasing its (perceived) value. Quixort, which is a trivia game meets tetris, in which you need to stack the falling answers in a particular order based on a particular prompt. And finally there’s the fourth iteration of Fibbage that has gotten a batch of new questions, prompts, final fibbage options and even fan-submitted questions.
The one I got extensive time with was a game called nonsensory, which combines both drawing, writing prompts and guessing games. Each player gets a prompt and has to write a sentence or make a drawing based on a percentage that is attached to the prompt. For example “a sentence that has a 70% chance of being in a James Bond movie” or “A person that is 90% exhausted.”. After writing or drawing the prompts, the other players have to bet on the percentage that was attached to the prompt. Players are able to double down on their bets which can lead to a massive lead in points or losing all the advantage they’ve had up until that point. I found the ruleset of Nonsensory to be pretty easy to understand, which is what I think makes a great Jackbox Games. The overall variety of the pack seems pretty impressive as well and I’m especially looking forward to trying out Roomerang and Junktopia. This party pack also features some new quality of life changes like localization for German, French, Spanish and Portuguese (with some prompts being changed to fit their respective markets) as well as a new safe streamer mode, in which streamers are able to kick players. As well as an expanded audience of 10.000 participants. The game launches simultaneously on all platforms later this year and should be something for streamers to look forward to!
Please, Touch the Artwork - Hands-on Demo [PC]
Developers:Thomas Waterzooi
Publisher:Thomas Waterzooi
One Sentence Pitch:Varied puzzles that make you believe Mondriaan would’ve been a fun game designer.
This game actually released this week on Switch, so can try it right away with a free demo! Please, Touch the Artwork, tells its story using different types of art that resemble the works of famed Dutch artist Piet Mondriaan. Most well known for his work Boogie-Woogie and the use of straight lines and primary colors. The game takes an unique approach and creates three different types of puzzles from these concepts. Some mean coloring in different panels, others are guiding cubes to a specific goal and yet others see you tracing lines across the artwork. It feels like a very fresh puzzle experience that should be approachable for all ages. Due to its style it definitely stands out from other puzzle games and feels like a perfect harmony between design and visual presentation. The one downside is that I’ll never be able to look at a Mondriaan painting in the same way ever again.
The last case of Benedict Fox - Hands-on Demo [PC]
Developers:: Plot Twist
Publisher: Rogue Games inc.
One Sentence Pitch: What if we put investigative detective work in a Metroidvania?
I really just want to quickly shout out The Last Case of Benedict Fox in general. While it isn’t coming to Switch (yet?) this game is absolutely one to keep in mind if you’re a fan of Metroidvania games with a dark twist. You play as Benedict Fox and are exploring the research of his late father in a dark and twisted world. The game is a 2D platformer that visually reminded me of Ori and the Will of the Wisps, crossed with a cinematic platformer like Another World. Thankfully the game has a high speed and combat feels crunchy. You can stab with a knife, or fire off a single bullet from your gun. All the while you collect energy and ink to enhance your powers via a tattoo that you can upgrade back at a manor hub world. All the while you collect clues in the world about what happened to your father and why his history with Benedict is so fraught. This game really caught me by surprise and while it’s coming out on Xbox Game Pass next spring, it is certainly one to look out for. Who knows, it may even make the jump to Switch at some point in the future.
The Last Worker- Hands-On Demo [Switch]
Developers: Oiffy, Wolf & Wood Interactive
Publisher: Wired Productions
One Sentence Pitch:An all-star cast for a first person narrative driven game that definitely a-political./p>
I think what sets The Last Worker apart from much else is that this is the first time I’ve heard about a game that was fully designed to work flawlessly in VR and then ported to the Nintendo Switch. As the developer told me as I was playing the demo: “I figured if it has to work on a VR-headset for two screens rendering at 1440p, then it must be easy to run on a single screen at 1080p.”. Honestly he was not wrong. The Last Worker sees you as the last warehouse worker in a not-so-dystopian future working for the Jüngle company. Any resemblance to existing names or people is totally coincidental, the developer assured me. The game sees you moving boxes while being guided by a little robot called Skew (voiced by the legendary Jason Isaacs). Unfortunately a big event like Gamescom isn’t always the best moment to truly get a feel for a sober narrative driven experience, but the design and mood of the world was immediately noticeable. Its cartoony cell-shaded style gives the Last Worker a lot of personality. Both in its character design as well as the way in which you interact with the world. You control the game by flying around in a small hovercraft-like unit, where you have to avoid machinery and safely deliver packages from the warehouse to the consumer. The story is really shaping up to be something unique with performances from Zelda Williams, Olafur Darri Olafsson and David Hewlett. If you’re into proper narrative games and are looking for one that is actually fully optimized for Switch, then The Last Worker should definitely be on your wishlist!
SCHiM - Hands-on Demo [PC]
Developers: Ewoud van der Werf
Publisher: Extra Nice
One Sentence Pitch: A cute shadowy blob that makes its way through a wholesome Dutch world.
Am I biased when it comes to talking about SCHiM? Yes. As much as I’d like to avoid it, SCHiM just ticks a lot of personal boxes for me. What started out as a graduation project, turned into a worldwide sensation with multiple trailers being picked up for several major showcases and the game even being part of the 30-game selection of next week’s Tokyo Game Show. But even with all the hype, I hadn’t had a chance to sit down and play the game myself. SCHiM sees you controlling a small little shadow blob that could’ve come straight out of a Studio Ghibli Film making its way across all sorts of environments. From busy streets, to a small park, alongside canals to a bus stop. Your goal is quite simple, to reunite objects with their shadows and use that to travel further and find your own human that has lost his shadow. The best way to describe gameplay is as if Untitled Goose Game was a 2.5D platformer. You view the game from an isometric perspective and can move only between shadows. If you ever miss a jump you’ll be reset to the last shadow you inhabited. This makes the game very accessible and allows for lots of interactions with the objects. From making bike bells ring to launching yourself via the shadow of a billboard on springs. The inventive ways in which you move about and around in the world was a joy from beginning to end even though the demo only lasted a short while. SCHiM is a game to look out for and something that may work as a great stepping stone for introducing family and friends to videogames.There’s no better definition of the term wholesome than seeing SCHiM in action.
Sonic Frontiers - Hands-On Demo [PC] (Only fifteen minutes)
Developers: Sonic Team
Publisher:SEGA
One Sentence Pitch: Sonic Team attempts to reinvent the franchise for the…. Fourth time?
I went to the SEGA booth every day to request permission to play the extended demo for Sonic Frontiers. But every day they were unfortunately fully booked. I had honestly given up hope, until a friend of mine told me that the TikTok booth of all places had a demo for Sonic Frontiers playable on the show floor. Now for those unfamiliar with GamesCom, the public show floor is always crowded beyond belief with long lines of people wanting to play the latest games. As someone from the press, we tend to make appointments beforehand in the business area, so that we can play these demo’s in peace and maybe even talk to a developer. But for Sonic Frontiers I made my way to the TikTok Public Booth, stood in line ( for admittedly a relatively short time) and got my hands on a PC demo of Sonic Frontiers. While the story completely washed past me (Sonic waking up in a weird glitching world while being watched by a strange being and him being guided by a mysterious voice) I held my breath as I gained control over the Blue Hedgehog and started running.
And I didn’t hate it.
Now, to judge this demo based on the ten to fifteen minutes I got to play around with it before a TikTok Staff Member told me to make room for new players is not exactly representative. Many other people I talked to, who did stand in line for over an hour to play the same demo at the SEGA booth for an extended period of time, had a far worse time with this demo. My expectations were pretty abysmal to be honest but I still felt that I wanted to see how Sonic Team wants to present this reinvention of the franchise.
Let’s begin with the obvious and most notable aspect. Even on this PC build of the game, it looked absolutely awful. You’ve probably seen some fanprojects of a Sonic game built in the Unreal Engine that are probably looking better than this. Frequent pop-in, terrible use of shaders and visual effects made Sonic Frontier immediately look off. Even during the cutscenes it was shocking to see how bad the game was looking on PC. Especially for a game that will be releasing on both the last generation and the current generation of hardware. This has made me very curious about the performance of the Switch version, but we’ll get there when we get there.
So while the graphical design and visual pop-in didn’t make a good case for the game, the gameplay itself I actually found pretty enjoyable. The sense of speed in a Sonic game hasn’t felt this good since something like Unleashed. The wide open areas of the overworld make traversal quite fun, especially with a lot of interactive objects like grind rails, bumpers and boosters. The fact that you aren’t restricted by the linearity of a level design or the sluggishness of a Sonic hub world is rather refreshing. Quests and objectives work in a similar way, while some are rather straightforward, you can find items scattered around the open world and use those to unlock additional levels (like the subspace ones you’ve probably seen of Green Hill Zone). While the puzzles never required too much brainspace on my end, I did like the incorporation of the new trail mechanic. Unlocked via the skill tree, yes there’s an actual skill tree in this game, you can hold down the Y button at any time to have a blue streak follow Sonic’s footsteps. This can be used to draw circles around enemies and objects, sort of similar to the approach in Pokémon Ranger. When encircled, Sonic dashes towards the enemy and deals a good amount of damage and can even stun opponents. While the mechanic seems to have many uses and has to be incorporated in puzzles as well, it feels like an interesting method to spice up Sonic’s general moveset. I can see how this may be a choice to influence the next decade of Sonic titles and so far, if you ask me it has potential.
Another thing that surprised me was combat. The first footage released by IGN of Sonic Frontiers made the combat feel slow and sluggish. Especially when dealing with minor enemies seemed to take an absurdly long time. But it seemed that during this demo defeating enemies was much more doable. I really enjoyed the ways in which Sonic can engage with combat during the demo. From dealing regular kicks and punches, to using that streak ability to stun the opponent, to actively dodging out of the way of an attack by hitting the RB button and then using that opening to deal massive damage. It maybe isn’t as instant as his old Homing Attack, but it does feel weighty and make enemies a more formidable obstacle in an open world where running around them is also a valid option at all times.
What stood out to me most at the end of my time with this demo is that Sonic Frontiers still feels and plays like a modern 3D Sonic game. Whether that is something you enjoy is definitely subject to opinion and taste. As someone who has enjoyed quite a few of the 3D outings, especially around the Unleashed and Generations eras, this clicked with me immediately. The open world is something that needs to be experienced for a longer time to fully judge, but for now it feels like a right fit for Sonic. Now whether this game will run well enough on Switch is a matter of waiting till we see it in action on the go, but hey, if Mario, Zelda and Kirby can do it, Sonic shouldn’t have a hard time with this right? Right…?
And that’s all that I’ve been able to play around with during Gamescom. I’d like to thank the individual publishers and developers for being so gracious with their time and letting me play and experience their games. We should definitely hear more about these games as we get closer to their release date. Let us know which one of these seemed most interesting to you in the comments!
It’s not an understatement to say that the Pokémon franchise is huge. But I think that just reporting on the number of sales the video games, trading cards and boatloads of merchandise have made only paints half a picture. You’ve likely seen comments from Pokémon fans online in the past regarding an announcement, or you’ve almost certainly come across people in your city playing Pokémon GO. Heck, you may even have participated in gifting Pokémon cards or opening packs with friends or family. All of these aspects shape the Pokémon community, but it was last weekend at the Pokémon World Championship (Hereafter “Worlds”) in London that I truly came to understand what drives so many players, enthusiasts and die-hard fans towards this franchise. It’s an event so enormous in scope and size that at first I found myself struggling to understand what made it so special and by the end found myself more ingrained with Pokémon than ever before.
On paper, Worlds is pretty easy to understand, yet explaining it to people unfamiliar with what that all entails was something to behold. I first got a taste of this right before I boarded my plane to London and the military police asked me what I was going to do in London.
Me, being slightly hesitant: “I’m going to the Pokémon World Championship.”Him: “Wait, the Pokémon Championships? What do they play? The card game?”Me: “No, they play everything. From GO, to the card game, to the video game and everything in between,” expecting him to roll his eyes and handing me back my passport. (To my surprise) Him: “Oh man, that’s so awesome. Hope you’ll have a great time there!”
It’s kind of weird in hindsight that I still managed to underestimate people’s general connection to Pokémon as a brand. Sure, we’ve just celebrated the series' 25th anniversary, but at times it still feels like it could slip back into this obscure corner of pop-culture. I’m confident that the brand is strong enough to easily last another twenty five years, but being recognized and actively being understood are two major different things. While I doubt this military police officer would’ve known of my favorite Pokémon (Excadrill), the fact he immediately latched onto the idea of a Pokémon World Championship is truly something that I’ve rarely come across. And this was even before I boarded the plane and ended up entering a truly incredible event.
What makes Worlds so distinct from a traditional convention or gaming event is that the shared connection with all other attendants is immediately noticeable. While some only came for the exclusive Pokémon Center, with walkways upon walkways of exclusive and pricey merchandise, most were there to actively enjoy the activities being held: from participating in the fun Play Lab, where you could learn how to play the Trading Card Game (TCG), to exclusive Pokémon GO stops and events to capture rare event and legendary Pokémon. Even the Nintendo Switch demo units that only carried Pokémon Legends: Arceus were always busy. Plenty of times I spotted parents reconnecting with Pokémon for the first time in twenty years after being spurred on by their own kids. I cannot begin to describe how it feels to grow up alongside a generation of games and see them being passed onto the next generation of players. Sure it made me feel like I had instantly aged, but once that shock passed it was heartwarming to see.
This is where I especially need to shout out the fantastic organization and decoration of the event. From the phenomenal Pokémon Center, fully themed after London’s highlights in both the store itself as well as the merchandise, to the hallways plastered with enormous banners featuring all sorts of Pokémon. The energy was simply electric, and the staff was very helpful the entire event. The main stage was without a doubt the highlight—Not only featuring some elaborate set-design like two double-decker buses and gigantic decorative pieces, but the seating and view for the audience was great, too. The opening ceremony in particular managed to take advantage of this. Ishihara-San may have opened the event, but it truly erupted once a promotional video started playing that showed Pachirisu facing off against Garchomp, Salamence and Tyranitar. A fantastic nod to the fans and the VGC Masters finals of 2014. It came across as inspiring. During the event, I met a friend of mine, Christiaan Smit, who had qualified for the TCG championships for the very first time after participating in regional tournaments during the entire season. That opening ceremony in particular made him really feel part of the event and the community as a whole:
“There was something about that video that made me tear up. Seeing all those previous champions in that video receiving their trophies and knowing that there was a chance I could be one of them.”
Fantastic opening video produced to kick off the world championship. You can tell the audience is excited. pic.twitter.com/AyYWu3aYjk
That fierce hope and participation was noticeable in nearly every event I managed to see. I was in awe of the truly surprising intensity during the Pokémon GO matches to the more traditional Fighting Game scene that was shown surrounding Pokkén Tournament, going out on one last absolute bang. And while the TCG and VGC competitions were engaging during all the different divisions (junior, senior and masters), I think that just seeing so many people coming together to celebrate Pokémon in so many forms is what I will take with me at the end of the day. The side-events especially showcased this. Specifically, I admired the fun outdoor area called Pokémon Worlds Square, where I met a dancing Pikachu and Eevee and got some refreshing Boba Tea and the London Cable Car that goes over the Thames, which was completely overtaken by Pokémon stickers and each carriage representing a different Pokémon typing. You could simply feel that the love for all things Pokémon was what drove this event, which made it especially interesting, considering that this would be the only outing of the eighth generation during a world championship.
It’s hard to avoid the topic of controversy when talking about Pokémon Sword and Pokémon Shield. I think that most players during their playtime with the game felt that there was something lacking, be that the initial post-game, the design of the Galar Region or the decision to remove the National Dex. We’ve probably all seen someone online in a comment section, twitter or reddit thread make a stink about how “Pokémon is ruined forever.” And while I am certain that there were players in the audience or participating groups thinking that, it was so refreshing to be reminded that Pokémon fans in general are actually pretty chill. Sword and Shield never got their time in the limelight from a competitive perspective due to the consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, so seeing these participants still giving it their all was something that I desperately needed. Not only because I found my own interest in Pokémon waning a bit over the last few years, but also because I once aspired to participate in competitive VGC as well. Seeing people performing at this level was inspiring on a level I hadn’t considered before. Yes, watching the event online can give you the same type of satisfaction, but being part of this massive audience while cheering and enjoying all things Pokémon is something that you really need to feel for yourself.
Pokémon Sword and Shield definitely went out with a bang at their only Pokémon Worlds showing. And while it was a joy to watch this generation of Pokémon come to a close, you could feel everywhere that excitement was brewing for Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet. Not only because the event was completely focused on the eighth generation of games with barely any reference to Scarlet and Violet outside one photo stand and caps for the new starters, but also because the show literally opened withIshihara stating that a new trailer would be shown during the closing ceremony of Worlds alongside other announcements. Perhaps it was the energy that you could feel during the entire event, but there was so much excitement leading up to the showcase of what was next for the upcoming generation of Pokémon. If you ask me, Game Freak and the Pokémon Company absolutely delivered.
I believe that with this next generation, Game Freak is really giving it their all in pleasing as many parts of the different fanbases as possible. Funnily enough, I think that it wasn’t the new Scarlet and Violet trailer that showed this, but the Pokémon Trading Card Game announcement in particular with the return of EX-cards. I’m not an expert on the TCG, but EX-cards were very well received by the player base during the third generation when they were introduced. By announcing the return of these fan-favorite mechanics and emphasizing that this is to introduce more diversity in the selection of Pokémon and the line-up, it sets up that the creativity of players is the main focus for the next generation of playing the Trading Card Game. On top of that, the new trailer for Scarlet and Violet focused in particular on the new battle items and the effects the new Terastalizing mechanic will have on competitive battling. It makes me very excited to see how players will use these mechanics to create their own truly unique teams. Announcements like these aren’t just made for marketing purposes, though they serve that purpose as well of course; they show good faith towards the most die-hard of players. Not the screaming commenters underneath every YouTube-video, but the ones that actively seek out these events to connect and compete with each other.
As I was boarding my plane back home I realized that Pokémon Worlds had not only given me hope for the future of Pokémon, but instilled a spark of hope inside me. Even if Scarlet and Violet happen to be a disappointment, even if the final evolutions of the starter pokémon will be bipedal humanoid creatures and even if the online commenters lose their minds again because a tree doesn’t have the proper shading, it doesn’t matter to me. Because I know that at the end of the day, the people I’ve seen participating and coming out to events like this are the true reason why I am still enjoying Pokémon after twenty five years. It is the drive to become a better person by being open to learning from others and sharing these moments of joy with strangers. Even while I don’t know them and possibly may never agree with them, we can still have these moments where seeing a Pachirisu facing off against a Salamence makes us explode with emotion.
Of course I had to pass the military police again during my passport check back to the Netherlands.
Him: “Where did you come from?”Me: “I went to London for the Pokémon World Championships.”Him: “Oh really? There’s World Championships in Pokémon? Did you compete?”Me: “No I didn’t, I just really got to report on it and enjoy the tournament.”Him: “Ah, that must’ve been awesome.”
Reviewer's note: In the interest of accurately representing the complete game, I have chosen to post this review unscored until I have been able to see more of the world and advanced gameplay. I would like to mention that I do feel confident in recommending Coromon at this time on Switch.
I was about eight years old when I discovered Pokémon ROM hacks. The one that had me absolutely hooked was a modified version of Pokémon Emerald called Pokémon Quartz. This game had its own Pokémon designs and a far more in-depth story than anything presented in Game Freak’s original. As a kid, I was stunned by how well these creators had understood Pokémon and gave it their own spin. Of course, in hindsight, putting your own original creations in the world of Pokémon really isn’t that high a bar. And I think the creators of Coromon have realized this. You might mistake this as a simple Pokémon clone, but based on my time with the game so far, I’ve been really impressed with how Coromon differentiates itself from what came before. It may just be the Pokémon experience you’ve been looking for, if you’re hankering for the more traditional style of the early generations.
So yes, on paper Coromon is almost comically a knock-off of Pokémon. You’re an adolescent leaving home to explore his country in search of mysterious creatures with their own elemental typings and you use your own monsters to battle them and other trainers. The details may be different, instead of balls you throw spinners at wild Coromon and you’re actually a researcher gathering data for a tech company, not trying to be the very best like no one ever was. But I was struck by how fresh the world and design of Coromon feels. It makes some dedicated efforts to invite comparison, but also shows how Coromon tries to bring its own ideas to the table.
Let’s begin with the Coromon themselves. Sure you have your starter Coromon, which is neatly part of an elemental triangle and there’s plenty of bug, snake and dog-like Coromon walking about. But overall their designs are very creative and expressive. I was almost immediately reminded of Pokémon Black and White and the fifth generation’s approach to its world and creatures. They all share a certain familiarity with Pokémon that came before, but each has their own unique twist with regards to their design. What separates Coromon, however, is the way the creatures are trained and leveled. Coromon are designated as having three different classes called “potential,” ranging from Standard to Superior to Perfect. Not only are the differences visible, but superior Coromon also have a different color palette compared to their standard variants; superior and perfect Coromon improve their potential much faster, too. Potential is a separate bar from the experience bar that can level up individually. Once it maxes out, you are free to distribute additional stat points to your Coromon. Superior Coromon max out their potential bar faster and Perfect Coromon even more so.
This gives a player so much customization as to how they want to raise their Coromon. Do you want to immediately invest the additional stat-points into the highest base stats? Or do you want to experiment and add higher speed to tank-like Coromon? I really like this system because it helps your Coromon grow, even when they haven't necessarily reached a high level. I found a superior Mino (A boar with flaming manes) early on and it quickly became one of my hardest hitting creatures, but I could mitigate its base stats that designate it a glass cannon by giving it higher points in defense when it reached its potential.
The typings in Coromon are also very different. There’s seven base typings that work differently than in the Pokémon series (for instance, Ice here is very effective against water), but aside from the typings there are also Skills. These correspond to specific attacks and have no relation to the typing of the Coromon. For example, poison isn’t a type a Coromon can have, but it is a type of attack that can be used against a normal-type Coromon for massive damage. It’s a bit of a hassle to get your mind around at first, but it gives the combat system some depth and variety that can’t be found in the Pokémon series.
The general story so far has been quite alright. Coromon doesn’t seem to actively go against the family-friendly vibe of the Pokémon series with adult or dark themes, but the writing does come across as being less talked down to. While I tend to find myself rather bored with talking to NPCs and characters in the main Pokémon series, in Coromon I found the writing to be more engaging and enjoyable. It may lean a tad too heavily on the referential humor, but it thankfully hasn’t overshadowed the core experience quite yet.
What I am a particular fan of is the brilliant pixel-art on display here. From the colorful towns and routes to the animation of the Coromon themselves, it is absolutely stellar. Especially when you reach areas beyond the starting forest, the developers definitely flex their animation and art skills. This is even more true when you unlock more capabilities for your gauntlet (this game’s version of the Pokédex / Catching machine / HMs) like pushing or burning objects. It makes you feel very engaged in the world, especially because each Coromon has its own unique overworld sprite as well. While the creatures don’t follow you around like in Pokémon Yellow or HeartGold, seeing them come alive in the overworld is a great touch at making them feel part of the world they inhabit, which is something I haven’t seen that much of in other Pokémon-like games.
There are a few minor gripes I have with Coromon. While you can adjust your controller inputs for the game, I was kind of annoyed that the + button is assigned to the menu and not the X-button. I know this is probably because you have more interactions within the overworld, but it has caused me numerous misclicks when I wanted to open the menu. Some UI elements I’m not a fan of as well. For instance, the way you have to individually select items for healing: when doing so, your first Coromon in the party is always selected instead of the one that needs a recovery item. I also think that the way the typings and skills are taught could use a bit more in-depth explanation. There are easily accessible manuals on most topics in the inventory, but it did take me quite some time to learn the mechanics and how to optimize a team.
I have not been able to finish Coromon since I received the review code. But from what I’ve played so far, I’ve been very impressed. From these 8 hours, I think that the world and creatures feel distinct from the games that inspired and it left me with an excitement that I haven’t felt since Pokémon Black and White. Not only the unique designs of the Coromon themselves, but mechanics like the potential-system and the way typings and skills work together sets Coromon apart from a simple ROM hack. There’s also a large selection of difficulty options that can be adjusted to make the game play more like a Nuzlocke or an easy mode; you can even actually catch opponents’ Coromon. The variety on display here is fantastic, so if you’ve been disappointed with recent Pokémon generations and are looking for a game that’s similar but has its own identity, Coromon is absolutely worth checking out.
I like to think of myself as an optimist. Especially when it comes to the capabilities of the Nintendo Switch. Yes, we’ve been playing with the system for over five years at this point, but looking at its output, it is still incredible that the core hardware has held up for as long as it has. Looking at ports like Ghostrunner, DOOM Eternal and especially Nintendo’s first party output on the system, the Switch is still more enticing to me than similar portable handheld devices. That being said, the cracks have become more apparent, especially for the last year or so. However, it is notable that XEL is absolutely one of the worst performing games I’ve seen on the Switch over the last five years. Releasing the game in this state, with quite a bit of marketing behind it, is a real shame and frankly should probably not have passed the quality assurance.
XEL opens quickly and sees the protagonist crash landing her spaceship on a mysterious planet. Unfortunately, the crash causes her to lose her memories of who she is and where she is, while also seemingly putting a rock in her forehead. Accompanied by a strange robot, she sets out to explore the planet and find out what XEL exactly is. From there on out, you find weird robots all over the place, and a colony of humans who are fighting against mysterious others. All the while you are searching for ways to repair your ship and save the colony. The game is presented as being clearly inspired by The Legend of Zelda games and is an action-adventure game.
I may be cutting this explanation short a bit, but that’s because I found the general conceit of XEL to be quite boring and lackluster. You have a sword and shield with which you can fight enemies. There are clearly marked dungeons that reward you with key items needed to progress, and there’s a roll button with a stamina meter. But whereas the landscapes and design of Hyrule evoke mystery and exploration, XEL sees you walking down a lot of linear hallways, beating up slow enemies, and having quite a bit of downtime during play. The exploration here rarely feels rewarding. From “hidden‘ audio logs to additional components used for improving gear and crafting items, I found myself quickly just passing all the additional stuff up to get the game done and over with. None of the characters feel engaging or well written enough to be fully invested in. And while a Zelda game also rarely has “well written characters,” XEL really wants you to connect with the mysteries and how these people are dealing with their life on this planet.
Unfortunately, most of what I can praise about the worldbuilding and the gameplay in XEL is that the general aesthetics of the game are pleasing. That’s about where this ends for me, because the Switch version is absolutely atrocious. Not only are we talking about horrendous frame-rates that I’d say drop below the double digits, but pop-in is a constant part of the journey. Oftentimes during play, edges of the world would simply vanish or pop-out or in without any sort of transition. In the colonized area of the world, the game would become nearly unplayable, with not only sluggish frame-rates and pop-in, but unresponsive controls as well. Going in for a quest and talking with villagers became a literal chore as the game was doing its hardest to keep up. Say what you will about other maligned Switch ports like the original release of Cloudpunk, as much as that game dropped on the visual aspect, it was at least performing semi-consistently. With XEL you run the risk of being unable to play it without any notice. All the while the game barely comes across as graphically demanding on the hardware. How can it be that other, high-effort indie games manage to run at a consistent 1080 and 30fps, but XEL is struggling to reach even half of those numbers?
And ultimately that’s where XEL fails hardest of all. It doesn’t differentiate itself enough from the other indie Zelda-like games that are available on Switch from a gameplay perspective. Titles like Death’s Door, Cross Code, and Blossom Tales offer a much more refined and unique take on the ideas Zelda is known for and run fantastic on Switch. XEL has little character to enjoy, there’s no story to keep you fully engaged, and gameplay feels contrived and repetitive. And that’s before we get to the frankly abysmal state that this game was released in. I was holding off this review to see if the game would be updated before its release, but quite frankly it seems that updating and fine tuning XEL will be an effort that I personally don’t think is worth it.
The original pitch for Firegirl: Hack ‘N Splash really caught my attention. Over the years there have been some firefighting games, but the set-up of presenting firefighting as a platforming roguelite seemed very inspired. Unfortunately after spending quite some time with Firegirl I have to say that the flame for this title has quickly dwindled and that it’s hard to recommend to fans of either platformers or roguelites. In case of fire I’d definitely leave this game behind.
As Firegirl, the daughter of a once great firefighter and new to the force, you are tasked with dowsing countless fires that have sprung up in the city. At first it may seem like random incidents happening all over town, but not long after it's discovered that someone has been using fire tomes to reawaken an ancient pagan god called the Firelord and is actively using the fire to burn down the city. It’s up to firegirl to not only rescue as many citizens as possible, but also help to restore the city funds to improve the fire station and figure out who is trying to summon the Firelord. It’s a simple story and anyone who’s ever read a story before will know where the game is headed, but it serves its purpose just fine.
Like I mentioned before, Firegirl is set up as a roguelite metroidvania. You race through burning buildings, fighting the fiery spirits that are destroying it while trying to rescue as many civilians and animals as possible. With your axe you are able to destroy debris and doors that block your paths, but your main method of fighting the fire is using your hose. By shooting water you can of course destroy flames, but it’s also a method of movement. By jumping and shooting the water below you can use the pressure to rocket yourself up to higher levels of the destroyed buildings. All of this becomes a race against time where you try to find the civilians before the building is completely burned down to the ground. If you lose your hitpoints the level also ends and you are rushed off to the hospital and have to pay a fine.
The visual style is most likely what immediately catches your eye when looking at footage of the game. It looks to be using a similar technique as Square-Enix’s 2DHD engine that we’ve seen for games like Octopath Traveler and the upcoming Live A Live. However, unlike those titles, here it often misses the mark in motion. Firegirl relies heavily on fast paced movement and while the sprite-art is really clean, the environments are rendered with 3D models. This makes it difficult to navigate throughout the levels, because the game doesn’t always clearly communicate what the ways are to progress. While you can look up and down while moving, it’s hard to see where doors are located and when doors connect to other rooms and spaces. The visual style therefore comes across as a bit of a mess. I’d have much preferred the game to use a complete 2D sprite-art, because it would’ve made navigation and exploration much less of a hassle.
What doesn’t help is that Firegirl gets repetitive very very quickly. While there are few levels that try to change up the pacing like saving people on a moving train, most of the time you’ll be exploring the same burning apartment building that has no logical structure to it. Often you’ll come across rooms that have no power up, no connection to another room or anything to do except waste your time. While I admire this approach to showcase how stressful rescue can be for a firefighter, it just makes the gameplay boring and repetitive. After each mission you get rewarded new funds, and if you complete the mission successfully new facilities that you can upgrade at the fire station. These upgrades are a requirement to be able to complete certain levels, because I’ve come across multiple buildings where there simply was no way to replenish the water tank which caused me to burn down with the building. But the game does a bad job explaining what your objectives are and how to locate civilians during a rescue. There’s a general indicator coming from the fire chief when you are near a civilian, but because certain doors will be blocked by fire after passing through, I found myself more often than not, completely locked out of successfully completing a mission.
And that’s before I get to the frankly disappointing performance on the Nintendo Switch. Consequently every time I entered a large hallway in a burning building the game would freeze for a full second and drop frames immediately. When getting hit by fire while hovering with the hose the game also often became sluggish to play. The game isn’t as graphically demanding as other titles on Switch and given the consistency of these dropped frames I’m hopeful it can be patched out. But it does make this Switch title feel like a compromised experience. And that’s before we get to the soundtrack which repeats itself nearly non-stop and gets tedious very fast. As well as sound effects and bugs, like whenever you obtain new fans after a rescue and the new fans animation and sound effect keeps repeating for a minute. Even if you like roguelite’s and don’t mind the rough edges, the Switch version hardly feels ideal to play.
Overall I found that with Firegirl there was a wish to recreate a 2D-Metroid escape sequence as a full videogame. But the developer hasn’t seemed to grasp why such a sequence works so well. If a player has gained familiarity with an environment and is then tasked with finding the exit under new conditions and a countdown, it creates tension and excitement. A player will rely on their gained knowledge and skill to beat the timer and is left with a rush of relief and feeling of success. However in Firegirl there is no set-up and the game quickly devolves into frustration because of a disorienting layout, repetitive gameplay and the occasional bug or visual glitch. While there’s definitely an idea here it seems that Firegirl is unable to escape this Switch port unscathed.
Stop for a second and think about it. What were all the new or old hobbies you decided to take up during the COVID-19 pandemic? Was knitting finally back in action? Did you finish that backlog of games like you always wanted? Or did you decide to pursue further education or learn a new skill? Whatever you’re imagining, I can tell you that you’ve probably spent most of that time more wisely than I have, because I fell into the deep dark void that is board game collecting. Over the last two years, I’ve been going on a bit of a rampage collecting all sorts of board games: from long two-player epics like Star Wars: Rebellion to casual fun card games like Claim. Unfortunately, a pandemic is not the best time to start with collecting physical board games to play with multiple people. However, that did not stop me from backing board games on Kickstarter as well as learning about Oink Games. Oink is a very special board game company that specializes in smaller, group-focused board games. Their titles are not only well designed but come packaged in these lovely small boxes that contain all the components. While they aren’t necessarily expensive, their printing tends to be limited since the games are designed in Japan. Therefore, when they announced a digital collection of a selection of their titles with free future updates adding more games to the mix, I was immediately interested. Let’s Play Oink Games may just be even better than playing the actual board games themselves.
Let’s first quickly go over what is in this collection. At the time of this review, there are five playable titles in the game with more to follow over time. These titles are: A Fake Artist Goes to New York, Deep Sea Adventure, Moon Adventure, Startups, and Mr. Face. Each one is an entire unique game with its own set of rules and mechanics. Right off the bat, I immediately noticed the clean presentation. While the collection isn’t as polished as Nintendo’s own 51 Clubhouse Games, I did really like the combination of the visual presentation and physicality of the pieces. Even in the selection-menu all the games are displayed like their boxes, with the accurate description and summary on the back of the box. Each game is accompanied by its own musical theme and design, such as Deep Sea Adventure’s aquatic ambient soundscape and the building pressure in Moon Adventure. There’s also a ton of character icons to choose from for your profile, and overall the game adds to the charm by allowing you to communicate with other players through emoji.
So what are the games themselves actually like? My personal favorites here are probably Moon Adventure and Startups. In Moon Adventure, you play cooperatively with the other players and try to gather supplies from the moon before oxygen for any player runs out. It is a very tense and exciting game that really puts communication and teamwork at the forefront of the experience. Panicking as your oxygen supply runs out and the oxygen supply depots get destroyed due to bad luck never ceases to be a true ‘oh crap’ moment when played with a group. On the opposite end of that is Startups: a game that sees you bidding on companies, while trying to gain a majority monopoly and having the players that don’t have the majority paying up the difference. It’s fast-paced, always feels balanced, and can shift suddenly when it becomes a staredown between two players betting for the majority.
That’s not to say that the remaining games aren’t fun on their own. Deep Sea Adventure works on a similar premise to Moon Adventure but is more competitive. Players dive to the bottom of the ocean and have to spend oxygen to get themselves and their collected loot back into the submarine. This is much more akin to a gambling game, where the tension is between picking the right moment to return or drowning because another player went back after collecting only a single piece of treasure. Thankfully there’s also a few creative titles in here. A Fake Artist Goes to New York and Mr. Face both feel very similar to games you could find in a Jackbox Party Pack. In A Fake Artist, each player has to draw the same prompt with a single stroke of their brush. The twist is that one of the players does not know the prompt and has to pretend to know what they’re drawing. It becomes a fun game where all the players are second-guessing their friends as to who could be the fake artist. Thanks to a clever rule, the fake artist still has the chance to win when there’s a tie, by guessing what the actual prompt was. Mr. Face has each player arranging pieces of a face in order to portray a specific facial expression and the other players have to guess what the corresponding card is.
Now that’s quite a bit of game for your money, and what’s great about Let’s Play Oink Games is that all the games support both local and online play. Though in my experience online play has definitely been the way to go. See, certain games aren’t compatible with local play due to their nature and mechanics. Startups, for example, can only be played online or with your own Switch screen, due to the fact that each player needs to draw a hand that’s secret from the others. Likewise, A Fake Artist actually asks local players to close their eyes one at a time, before deciding who will be the fake artist. While I trust my friends to actually do that, it does feel like not every game has made that perfect transition to a digital board game. Though I should say that playing a game like A Fake Artist Goes to New York online is a much more streamlined experience than the actual physical board game. When played in real life, it requires one player to remain neutral and that player divides the roles between fake artist and the other players. So you do gain one additional player by playing this digital version of Oink Games. That also adds to the value argument. Most Oink Games cost between 20 and 25 dollars due to their limited printing and high import costs from Japan. With this digital version you have a great way to get familiar with these games, without immediately having to spend a lot on each one. That said, I should add that ever since getting into Let’s Play Oink Games, I did buy nearly all of the games in this collection for my own personal board game nights. Some things never change I suppose.
The final downside is that so far the online servers haven’t been as active as I’ve wanted them to be. It’s not too surprising, since this isn’t as high profile a digital board game as say Wingspan or even 51 Clubhouse Games. But finding a table to join and getting the random players involved ready to start the game didn’t go as smoothly as I was hoping. Thankfully, I got friends together and we played for nearly three hours and tried each one of the games. One of them despises board games but even he came around and wanted to play more of Mr. Face, Startups and Fake Artist in the future. So if you can get multiple friends to buy in on this collection, you’ll almost certainly have a great time with it. If you’re by yourself however be cautious that the fun could take a while to find online.
Let’s Play Oink Games is an incredible value for money. Each game in this collection is very well designed. While not each one is great for every situation, especially with local play for titles like Startups and Mr. Face, every game is completely different from the other. And heck, the game will be supported with free updates over time that add even more games to this collection. I’m hoping that titles like Nine Tiles Panic, Insider, Hey Yo, Modern Arts, and Troika will be added eventually. Oink Games makes some of the most fun board games you can buy and by having them this accessible, I’m certain I’m going to be playing them for years to come.
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