Tag: switch

Bezier (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Bezier is what would happen if Geometry Wars and Deus Ex Machina had a baby. All the neon eye cocaine of the former, with the disembodied narration and storytelling of the latter. And both bits are great. The gameplay is pure arcade. A twin-stick shooter with Gradius-like powerups, Blasteroids-like “bosses”, and a lot of dodging and weaving and sometimes running away. It looks, and sounds, incredible, and there’s some meaty feedback when big things explode. Like Out Run, there’s a …

Syberia 2 (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Having finished the first game I went right on and started the second, which was just as well as the first one just ended without a proper final conclusion. The sequel is, as I’d expected, more of the same. Slightly better animation, larger areas, and much more snow, but still Kate Walker being called by her full name while she tries to get her train even further north. The puzzles were mostly on par with the original, although one right …

Syberia (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Since I mostly gave up computer gaming back in the early 2000s, the Syberia games passed me by completely. In fact, point and click games – a mostly PC based genre at the time – were lost almost entirely, until Telltale came along with console versions of their adventures. Now of course, they’re on everything. I’d eyed up Switch ports of Syberia and its sequel on the eShop a number of times, but never got round to buying them until …

Spider Solitaire (Switch): COMPLETED!

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No, I didn’t cop out and “just complete a game of Patience”. Well, I did complete it, but only after more than FIVE HUNDRED attempts over more than thirty hours play. There are three modes – one with all the cards being the same suit, one with them being one of two suits, and one with all four suits. I completed the first two within a couple of goes each, but the four suit mode? Aw hell no. So, if …

Shantae and the Seven Sirens (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I’m a big fan of the Shantae games. They’re great looking, slick, and happy blue-skies Metroidvania games, and this – the latest in the series – is no exception. This time round, Shantae augments her whippy hair with instant transformations into animals, which are unlocked as you progress. A turtle that smashes through rocks, a newt that can climb walls, and a frog who can swim, for example. Where dances in previous games transformed you into animals, these transformations happen …

Journey to the Savage Planet (Switch): COMPLETED!

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It’s Metroid Prime! Only with humour and all the colours! And with big eyed aliens who meow at you! And it’s very, very good. Like Metroid Prime, there’s first person shootering, although that’s not really – bar some bosses – the main focus of the gameplay. No, you’re expected to explore, find upgrades to enable further exploration, and you need to discover what all the strange alien artefacts on this supposedly undiscovered and uninhabited planet mean. You find resources either …

198X (Switch): COMPLETED!

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198X is a narrative discovery game played out over a series of 1980s style arcade games. There’s a story about a girl who is bored of her suburbian life, who discovers an arcade, with the games there played as both actual games and allegories. Each is pretty short, but they’re great “versions” of Out Run, Final Fight, a shooter like Gradius or R-Type, and an auto-runner Shinobi style platformer. There’s also a Phantasy Star-like 3D RPG game at the end. …

Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (Switch): COMPLETED!

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As a massive fan of the original Hyrule Warriors (I own four copies and across them have put in over 900 hours of play), I was really excited to start on this and it was a rare situation where I pre-ordered a digital game such was my need to have it immediately. But, I was worried it might not live up to my hype. Did it? Well, when I realised that the real “meat” of the first game, that is …

Castlevania (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Yes, the original NES game, here in the Castlevania Collection on the Switch. And oh my was it harder than I remember. Mainly the medusa heads in the later levels. It’s still a great game, and having played other NES platformers this year so many of them just don’t play well these days – and they’re all the bloody same. But not this one!

Paratopic (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Paratopic is a narrative discovery game with what seems like a number of characters with related stories and jump-cuts between them. Think of Virginia and Thirty Flights of Loving, with a PS1 graphics aesthetic. It has a story that I can’t really share because the story is the reason for playing games like this and it’d be a big spoiler, but I will say that that there’s someone transporting illegal videotapes which appear to be like drugs and/or The Ring, …

Abzû (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Back when i originally played Journey, I was a bit unkind. I didn’t really get it and felt there was no actual game. Later, I came to realise that wasn’t really the point. So now I’ve played Abzû, I’m wary of doing the same thing. There’s no game, sure, and again, that’s missing the point. But the point is even less of a point than it was with Journey. Like that game, you travel a world with a lore uncovered …

Horace (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I previously started playing Horace on the iPad via a Steam Link from Windows on my Mac, but although I persevered using this setup for the whole of Lair of the Clockwork God, Horace’s tricky platforming needed something a bit more so a couple of hours in I stopped playing. Not that I hadn’t enjoyed it, just I thought I’d wait for a console version. And here it is! Firstly, let me get one thing out of the way. On …

Lonely Mountains: Downhill (Switch): COMPLETED!

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After being exposed to many people saying how much fun and how relaxing this game was, it isn’t a surprise that I bought it for the Switch. Also, all those people were right. You’re given a mountain, and a route to the bottom filled with twists, turns, jumps and cliff edges, and have to ride to the finish as quickly as you can with as few crashes as possible. There are many shortcuts, some of which are obvious, some are …

Code of Princess EX (Switch): COMPLETED!

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I was a big fan of the 3DS original version of this, what with it basically being a new Guardian Heroes game and all. A while back, the Switch HD remaster was cheap on the eShop, so I picked it up. Since then, I’ve dipped in and out every so often. It’s a bit grindy once you get about halfway through, which isn’t a problem as the fighting is great, but it doesn’t real lend itself to long periods of …

Hypnospace Outlaw (Switch): COMPLETED!

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Imagine Geocities was a place you visited via a headset while you sleep, and you’ve been made a mod and have to stamp out crimes like piracy, copyright theft and scams. That’s Hypnospace Outlaw. Surf webpages like you did in 1999, and complete tasks sent to you by the system maintainers. Download virtual pets and desktop toys! Read about conspiracies! Traverse fora about teen angst and musician worship! Get sucked in by Squisherz which definitely aren’t anything like Pokémon! Solve …