Category: Switch

Baba Is You And Baba Is Brilliant

I miss Games of the Month!!!! I’m gonna bring it back, kind of!!! Soon!

School is a lot as usual, but taking things slowly is the best I can do for now. I haven’t played as much as I would’ve liked, but we’ve still had some real killers in early 2019. First off? Baba Is Goooooooooooood.

I already called Baba is You “2017’s best puzzle game” when it was just a genius half-hour bit of puzzlecraft. Now that its ten-ish levels have grown to two-hundred-ish? Uh, you should probably toss your $15 at Arvi “Hempuli” Teikari” as soon as possible.

Part logic puzzle, part light programming, Baba Is You won’t fail to make you feel like a genius, then a complete moron, then the smartest human being who ever lived dozens of times over. You physically move the rules of the game around the screen with a Sokoban-style grid, and whatever you spell out becomes the law of the land. Push the word “Wall” away from “Wall Is Stop” and then enjoy your new ability to walk through walls. Tired of playing as Baba? Spell out “Rock Is You” instead, and live out your dreams as a rolling stone.

It’s an incredible mechanic that I’ve never seen anywhere else. It’s also a mechanic that makes so much sense as soon as you see it in motion it’s impossible not to want to try it yourself. Every person I’ve shown the game to has been able to dive right in an begin enjoying puzzles within a minute or two of figuring out what they’re looking at.

Every level in the game is either teaching you a new mechanic, or testing your knowledge of a previous one before building something brand new on top of it. If you decide the puzzles involving robots aren’t for you (I’m bad at them!), just skip onto one of the other dozen or so levels you have available at any one time. There’s a shocking amount of variety here that brings me back to my old Super Mario 3D World point: it’s never afraid to have a good idea and toss it away for another one. After several hours I’m still hitting breakthroughs with puzzles and stumbling into stunning realizations about the limits of the game. Baba Is You isn’t for everybody, but if you’re willing to really stretch your brain across some creative puzzle solving, you’ll find a lot to love.

If you want to feel like a super genius, check out Baba is You on the game’s site or on the Switch eShop.

April 6, 2019
Just Shapes & Beats Is The Rhythm Hell Game I Needed

I wish someone had told me Just Shapes & Beats existed before I stumbled across it a month after release. If you know my taste in games, you’ll know that a weirdly artsy rhythm based bull hell hybrid is going to 100% be up my alley. Just Shapes & Beats nails that combo so hard it’ll be tough to see anybody else even give it a shot. As I played the first hour of Shapes and Beats, I had a bigger smile on my face than from any other game this year. It’s a game that just exudes pure joy even in the face of some surprisingly difficult challenges. I loved every minute.

It plays out like an interactive music video, your tiny little character moves and dashes around the screen avoiding pink obstacles that move in tune with the music. Levels vary wildly, from false 3D effects of bullets spinning around, to caverns filled with musical stalactites. As short as the game is, it crams so much variety into its two or three hours of dubstep and electronica tracks that I was ready to hop right back in as soon as it was done. Luckily, there’s a challenge mode where that exact option is available.

I understand a the main criticism I’ve seen thus far: yes, some of the obstacles and attacks are completely unfair, untelegraphed, and unacceptable in such an otherwise polished game. You have more health than you need for the most part, and I just take the damage from dumb trial-and-error attacks as they come, and remember to avoid them next time if I need to. Moments where damage is almost unavoidable are luckily few and far between, but I understand if those moments turn you off from the experience.

I know it’s a cliche to say a game is like X meets X, but this is one time where it felt like such a strange combination that I needed to get it off my chest. Imagine if the gameplay from Child of Eden and the emotional sincerity of Undertale were rolled into one video game, and you’ll have a slight understanding of the weirdness that this game pokes at by the time the credits roll.

Just Shapes & Beats is a game that I feel very few people are going to play. That sucks. It’s without a doubt the most unique game I’ve played this year, and pretty darn close to my favorite game of 2018. Go check it out!

July 29, 2018
Enter The Gungeon Is Sprinting Toward the Roguelike Throne

Enter the Gungeon may have come out in 2016, but 2018 is the year that it finally became that game it was meant to be all along. I played Gungeon back during launch week and found it to be a decent Binding of Isaac riff, but one in need of several improvements if it meant to aim for the rougelike throne. While I still think Isaac is my favorite of the two, Enter the Gungeon’s path of updates over the last few years have made quite a strong argument that Isaac isn’t the only game in town anymore.

After returning to the game two years later with waaaaaaay more content than was there during the initial release, I’d be hard pressed to say that Enter the Gungeon is just an inferior copy. They’re both the current kings of the roguelike genre, and it’s pretty much just up to taste as to which you enjoy more.

If you, like me, tossed Enter the Gungeon to the side as some throwaway toy back in 2016… there really hasn’t been a better time to see why both of us were so, so, wrong.

First off, if you’re unfamiliar with the genre, it goes like this: You run around and dodge scary enemies, manage a small inventory and look for sweet items. You get more powerful the longer that you survive, but as soon as you bite it, you’re all done and have to start over again. You do make small bits of permanent progress by achieving certain tasks so you’re never totally set to square zero. However, if you’re not into mastering a difficult game again and again, this might not be the thing for you. For everyone else, let’s talk about what’s new.

With the most recent Advanced Gungeons & Draguns update, a slew of new content has been released, including a new floor, new bosses, OVER 300 SYNERGIES BETWEEN WEAPONS AND ITEMS, new enemies, new modes, and more stuff that I’m probably forgetting. If you were put off by Gungeon’s individual runs not being as varied as Isaac’s, this is the patch you’ve been waiting for.

A rough estimate I’ve thrown around is that there’s at least double the amount of stuff to find and do in Enter the Gungeon 2.0 when compared to 1.0. Even just the small tweaks to the game speed and smoothing out a few rough edges here and there make Gungeon in 2018 feel almost like a sequel to developer Dodge Roll’s freshman effort. Suffice it to say, I’ll be paying my share of attention to anything they decide to work on next.

Dodge Roll also put this update out for FREE, which is ridiculous if you’re one of the several thousand fans following this update’s development.

Long story short: if you’ve been itching to hop into the roguelike genre or just want another game to play in between Isaac runs, Enter the Gungeon should absolutely be your next stop.

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I can’t believe I got through this whole post without making a bullet heaven joke.

Oh.

July 29, 2018
Celeste is a Tough as Nails Platformer With a Heart of Gold

It’s a difficult 2D platformer with pixel art. None of you would have ever, ever expected it on this site, would you?

Luckily, even though I’m a sucker for any of these, this one’s better than the handful of moderate-to-good indie platformers we get tossed at us every few months or so. Bringing back memories of my first playthrough of Super Meat Boy, Celeste brings the challenge that just feels so, so good to accomplish. The campaign also does way more narrative legwork than Super Meat Boy ever attempted (i.e. any), and is a surprisingly heartfelt tale of a young girl overcoming her own anxieties with the help of friends. It’s sweet, relatable, and hit me so hard at one point that I had to take a break; not from the platforming challenge, but from the challenging subject matter.

Not satisfied with just giving you a lengthy story mode with a genuinely compelling cast and story, there’s a whole extra couple of playthroughs to break your controllers in once you think you’re done. Clocking in around 20 hours now, I’ve fully completed the game’s first and second main campaigns, barely scratched the surface of the speedrunning aspects, and walked away in awe/disgust at how wild the final challenges are.

As much as I adore Celeste it isn’t without a glaring issue or two. First off, at the very end of the second campaign, a brand new mechanic is introduced. Though, “introduced” is a strong word here, and would imply the developer bothered to mention nearly anything about it before you’re expected to be an expert at using it.

It’s like you were going to have a nice hang sesh with Celeste, but they brought their friend along without telling you and also their friend lives with you now and oops Celeste is gone and now you live with a new weird friend who you don’t really know what to do with.

Uh, yeah, it’s pretty much like that.

I’m not kidding about it being strangely brought up at the end of the campaign. After a maybe 7 hourish Hard Mode, you’re in the last 20 minutes and are told to cross an obstacle you’ve never seen before. The game says “Jump – Dash (UP ARROW)” and expects you to understand what that means. Trust me, you don’t just jump, dash, and press the up arrow. That hint is pretty much worthless.

So after you give up jumping and dashing and head to this Reddit page of other confused people, you’ll figure it out. Remember that scene in Super Metroid where the small animals start jumping up a wall and you learn “Whoa, I bet I could do that too!” and you learn a brand new mechanic naturally through the game’s good design? I remember it. I don’t think the developers did.

The puzzles are also kind of hit and miss. They seem to aim for a Fez-like vibe but feel a bit out of place and too complex for their own good, especially if you’re in the animalistic mindset of “I just wanna jump over more pits.” The first puzzle you encounter with the birds is pretty rad though. Not super difficult but requires more than ten seconds of thought to solve. More like that please!

Aside from a couple of gripes that make up less than 1% of the whole game, Celeste is a beautiful work of art. Lena Raine‘s soundtrack hits every note perfectly. The art makes every area instantly identifiable and distinct. The platforming never feels mean or unfair, and always seems surmountable, even after a hundred deaths on one obstacle.

Celeste is up in the ranks with The End is Nigh and Super Meat Boy as far as indie platformers go, and I’m glad to see Matt Thorston and Noel Berry climb into the ring with the likes of Edmund Mcmillen, Tommy Refenes, and Tyler Glaiel. I’ll take all of the excellent platforming I can get.

February 16, 2018
10 Second Run RETURNS Is Fast, Frantic Fun

Every single level in 10 Second Run RETURNS (they write it in caps so don’t forget to scream it) has a time limit of 10 seconds. The first level, the final level, the four player multiplayer levels… all equally manic. Speed is quite literally the name of the game here, and they never let you forget it.

In less than an hour after downloading the game on Switch, I had blown through the single player campaign. It was fun as heck, and I never put my Switch down from start to finish. The thing is, though, that (if I’m being generous) the whole thing took about 45 minutes. I was a bit disappointed that it was already over after such a quick, albeit enjoyable, run. Luckily, once you’re finished racing through traps, fireballs, and other obstacles by yourself, it’s time for the better option.

While the single player mode’s draw is three stars to collect in each stage, the multiplayer mode doesn’t have that. What is does offer, however, is some of the most frantic yelling you’ll do with/at your friends outside of Overcooked. Two to four players each get a segment of the screen and are tossed into another set of 50 levels to sprint through. It’s just a very fun version of the platforming speedruns you see on AGDQ and the like, but all fit on one system without having to hook up four consoles for the same result.

10 Second Run RETURNS isn’t going to win any awards for it’s art. It doesn’t have the in-depth mechanics of something even as recent (and on the same system) as Celeste. But it’s a quick, fun game that’s better than the sum of its parts. And really, if you have anyone to do race mode with… you’ll probably get your money’s worth the first time you beat your friend to the finish line by .0001 seconds.

If you’d like to make three friends mad that you rule at platformers, check out the game on the Switch eShop.

This game was provided for review by the game’s developer/publisher.

February 7, 2018
Ittle Dew 2+ Might Be Better At Zelda Than Zelda

If the wait for the Virtual Console on the Switch is killing you slowly, maybe this can ease the pain. The Switch’s ever-expanding and, honestly, surprising library just got even better with the release of Ittle Dew 2+.

I remember playing the first Ittle Dew game several years ago and not being super impressed. It felt like a bog standard but serviceable Zelda-like with maybe a few too many block pushing puzzles. This one is different. When I think about Ittle Dew 2 in a handful of years, I know it won’t just be hazy memories of moving a block around a grid.

Ittle Dew 2 shares a bit of DNA with Breath of the Wild just as it does with its more obvious 2D inspirations, even though it predates the former by several months. You’re tossed into a huge world after a (thankfully) hasty introduction, and are told that you can go anywhere you want. Do the dungeons in any order. Discover secrets in any order. You’re permitted to explore any corner of the map you can get to, and to feel free to progress as you see fit. It’s a breath of fresh air, and one that Nintendo itself finally started to breathe in with A Link Between World’s openness.

You’ll rush your way through cavern after cavern, stumble across dungeons, find portals that take you to even secreter secrets, and more. Ittle Dew 2 never gives you a moment to get bored. You’re constantly finding new areas to explore, coming across a new mini-dungeon (very, very similar to Breath of the Wild’s shrines), or finding hint givers who nudge you towards something you might have missed. Nearly ever screen you happen upon will have at least challenge to complete, and I found myself losing hours just to find “one more cave”, which of course leads to another and another. Some puzzles you’ll blast through in seconds, others will give your brain a genuine workout to find the solution. The entire game is filled with so much variety that it’s hard to put down once you’re sucked into its delightful flow. It’s also laugh-out-loud funny at times, and has better writing than any actual Zelda game could ever hope for.

If I have anything to complain about, it’s the game’s bosses. The vast majority of them, especially the ones you’re likely to stumble across early on, are essentially just standard enemies with a bit more health. They don’t look cool, they don’t do anything particularly interesting… they just kind of stand there as you tank hits and stab them for 10 seconds. Then they die without much fanfare, you’re given your reward for finishing the dungeon, and you move on. Compare this to the fanfare and spectacle of any of A Link to the Past’s bosses, and it’s tough to gloss over. If not for that, I think this would be the essential modern 2D Zelda-like, joining the likes of 3D Dot Game Heroes and Anodyne, and even besting some of the games the developer obviously adores so much.

If you’re ready to play the second best Zelda game on the Switch (and it’s on everything else, too!), check out the game’s website here.

January 20, 2018