Author: sick skills

Long-time fans of Telltale Games will no doubt remember when the independent publisher and developer – specialising in the creation of episodic point-and-click games – hit its stride. Having worked with various IP including Sam & Max and Monkey Island since its inception in 2004, the company became more widely known within the video game community when it was able to acquire licenses for the comic book series – The Walking Dead and Fables (commonly known as The Wolf Among Us).

Since then, Telltale has worked with Game of Thrones, Borderlands and even Minecraft. It’s also been hard at work porting these episodic games across to every device that can handle them. The Switch is now next. Having already seen the arrival of Minecraft: Story Mode – The Complete Adventure, it’s now the caped crusader’s turn. Enter Batman – The Telltale Series.

This five-part episodic point-and-click series of the first season of Batman doesn’t stray far from the design of existing Telltale Games releases. The template that has made its games so popular since the company’s breakout success – when it released The Walking Dead – remains mostly intact. What’s different here is obviously the story. You enter the fractured psyche of billionaire Bruce Wayne as he slowly discovers the consequences of his choices as the Dark Knight – aka. Batman.

Similar to past Telltale Games titles, for every action there is a reaction; each episode is crammed with scenes focusing on Bruce Wayne and also his secret identity. The choices made as Batman often have an influence on Bruce Wayne’s personality, and vice versa. It’s very much a clash of the two personas throughout the series, with the character’s closest to Wayne (such as his loyal butler and long-time family friend, Alfred) willing to question his morals on a regular basis.

In this series Telltale has crafted a gritty and violent story that is a perfect match when applied to the Batman universe; it draws inspiration from the film noir style present in The Wolf Among Us. Gotham City in this story has darker themes – including corruption and brutality – to align with this and play up the turmoil. Throughout the series, Bruce Wayne and his alter ego deal with these key themes at all levels.

The first episode focuses on accusations aimed at Bruce’s family name, with a shocking revelation about the livelihood of his deceased father and his business operations made public. From this point onward, the plot thickens with a series of incidents woven together over time – with cameos along the way from well-known characters such as Cat Woman. The general unrest and crime infestation within Gotham City leads to Batman seeking out who is behind his problems while also attempting to prevent the city from becoming a haven for illegal activity. Telltale’s Batman works off Bob Kane and Bill Finger’s character, which has not been previously adapted to film or media.

For the most part Batman emulates the same tried and tested Telltale Games formula seen in past episodic releases. Telltale has got the pacing of its titles down to a fine art. Each episode lasts a few hours on average and is divided up into cinematic sequences incorporating quicktime events and static environments where either Bruce Wayne or Batman moves around while the player surveys the surrounding area for crucial information, items or evidence. In some cases you’ll link points of interest together within crime scenes. There are also the trademark Telltale cutscenes involving one or more characters interacting, and the player is required to make certain choices on Batman or Bruce Wayne’s behalf. A conversation could have Bruce agreeing with another character’s motives, or disobeying law enforcement as Batman.  

Whatever the choices are, it’s these decisions you make as the two identities that shape the outcome of each episode. Like past Telltale entries, it means entire episodes can be replayed and you may witness scenes play out differently each time. Although, in some cases, certain choices you make do not have as great of an impact on the final outcome or over-arching story as you might hope. It’s very much trial and error, but you do gain a subtle idea of how a specific scene might unfold. Commonly, players will make at least one decision during a playthrough they may regret, so it’s important to remain attentive in order to get your desirable outcome.

Whichever series the company is dealing with, Telltale has a real knack at writing an absorbing story and creating a captivating universe filled with appealing characters. Even if you don’t like the main subject (in this case, Batman) if you give the game at least half an hour to convince you it is worth your time – you’ll at the very least see out the first episode. Much like a television show, each episode typically ends on a cliff-hanger, or at least with a certain level of mystery surrounding the plot.

While it’s not as gripping as the likes of The Wolf Among Us – perhaps because Batman is so well-known – it still does an admirable job of drawing the player in. You don’t have to have any prior information or understanding of Batman, and you can be a first time player and still have a strong grasp on the plot. If you do however need some help, the game’s codex located on Bruce’s super computer within the Batcave gives players a rundown on Gotham City and also Batman’s allies and adversaries. In saying this, it’s admittedly a more enjoyable title if you are a fan of the source material.  

The minor downfall of Batman on the Switch is the game’s technical drawbacks, including a lower frame-rate and watered-down character models and environments that do not compete with the more detailed presentation of the title on certain other platforms. Normally it would be easy to overlook these problems in other genres, but given the fact this is an episodic point-and-click title where you arguably watch more than you play, it’s hard to ignore these graphical blemishes. Gotham City as a result feels a little bit more lifeless than possibly intended.

The animation within the game appears to be up to the usual standard – with the title rendered using a non-photorealistic style inspired by comic artists  – but the current Telltale game engine is admittedly beginning to show its age. While the docked mode on the Switch version of the game is not the most stunning, in handheld mode the game is crisply presented but struggles to perform as smoothly during more intensive scenes. Fortunately, these graphical and technical shortcomings do not detract from the overall experience – it’s still playable and therefore enjoyable.

In contrast to this, the voice acting in this series is a lot better. While Batman sounds a bit odd at first, you quickly adapt to it. All the other characters sound convincing enough, and none particularly break the immersion. The soundtrack when present always adds a sense of mystery or thrill to cutscenes and cinematic sequences, to further draw the player into the world of Batman. 

Conclusion

If you’re a fan of Batman and don’t mind the style of Telltale’s episodic point-and-click games this title is worth checking out. Despite its underwhelming technical performance and watered-down visuals, it’s a gritty and violent story that captures Gotham City in a similar way to other modern stories about Batman. Else, if you’re not really interested in Bruce Wayne or his late night activities, maybe hold out until another episodic Telltale game based on a different series is released.  

The Nintendo Switch has enjoyed one of the most exceptional launch years for any console, going from strength to strength with its software and building up plenty of hype. Even so, it’s inevitable that not every game on the eShop is going to turn out great, and Koi DX is a perfect example of this. What we have here is essentially a glorified demo, a jumble of half-baked ideas tossed into a functioning piece of software and sold for a few bucks.

Koi DX is a relatively directionless experience; even the menus are just a series of bizarre symbols that require you to decipher their meaning. You play as the titular koi fish out on a journey to purify the water of mankind’s pollution by leading other koi fish to lotus flowers that match them. Along the way, evil “Black Fish” and miscellaneous puzzles will stand as obstacles to your progress. Once all the fish have been escorted to their place, the Black Fish are purified and you move on to another section to do it all over again.

Though the game’s concept is initially intriguing, it’s all show and no substance; Koi DX quickly devolves to a series of easy, meandering chores that have little connection to each other and even less reward. The key problem seems to be the utter lack of any challenge or tension whatsoever. Levels primarily consist of swimming around broad expanses in search of the other koi so you can guide them to the lotus flowers and find more koi to guide to more lotus flowers. The only things that bring any consequence are the Black Fish; if one spots you, it’ll ram into you, which renders your koi essentially motionless for a few seconds. The lack of any challenge takes away even the most basic sense of accomplishment, as there’s nothing to really prevail over other than the game itself.

To mix up the experience a bit, a handful of puzzles are tossed in to trip you up, but these are mindless endeavours that don’t seem to follow any sense of purpose. For a game that pitches itself as a smart, artistic experience, Koi DX sure doesn’t show it when it asks you to match similar-looking lizards, or to remember a short sequence. And if you somehow do manage to fail a puzzle, you can just keep trying it until you get it right.

From a presentation perspective, Koi DX performs a little bit better, but it still comes off disappointing. The simplistic, colourful visuals are nice at first, but they don’t hold up very well under closer inspection. Whether it be blurry, poorly-upscaled images of rocks or shadows of lily-pads that impossibly extend past the water surface they’re supposedly cast on, we weren’t all too impressed with what we saw. The soundtrack — for its part — does a decent job of creating a somber atmosphere through the light piano notes and bells that play, but it’s hardly anything memorable.

Those of you hoping for a more in-depth experience will be sorely disappointed as Koi DX can be cleared in about two hours if you’re taking time to smell the roses. Each of the eight levels hides a few stars and puzzle pieces that you can find by swimming around a bit. The puzzle pieces unlock paintings that reveal a bit more of the story through brief phrases and sentences, and it all ultimately serves to preach the cliché and well-worn message that mankind is polluting the purity of nature. Different skins for your Koi can be also be unlocked by achieving certain goals, like finding all the stars, but these are nothing but palette swaps and the game will have long since outstayed its welcome by the time you unlock them.

Conclusion

All told, Koi DX is a cheap, uninspired game that has the beginnings of some good ideas, and it fails to execute any of them in a meaningful or memorable way. Boring gameplay, mediocre art direction, and an anaemic amount of content dooms this one to insignificance. We would strongly advise you to steer clear, as you very clearly are getting what you pay for, if not less. With so many other quality games available on the eShop right now, this is one to miss.

Hamster has done a good job of providing a variety of genres with its ACA Neo Geo series, but SNK’s machine had a lot of one-on-one brawlers and consequently Switch owners are not exactly short of options when browsing the eShop. Here’s another one, this time from the Fighter’s History series. Interestingly, SNES owners will soon have a chance to replay the third game and a port of the first on an upcoming compilation cart, but for now Switch fans can play the second entry (the only one on Neo Geo Hardware), Karnov’s Revenge (AKA: Fighter’s History Dynamite).

The game gives you a choice of thirteen fighters and features the usual best-of-three rounds mechanic as you work through the opposition en route to the ending. There’s a “weak point” system, but otherwise nothing to make it stand out from other fighters of the time, often coming across as “like Street Fighter II, but not as good”. Indeed, back in the day Capcom found the first Fighter’s History a bit too similar and took developer Data East to court (unsuccessfully, it should be noted).

There are similarities here too, with the announcer, HUD elements and other screens having a similar style to the Capcom game. Actually playing the Data East’s effort also results in a little déjà vu, as while there’s no out-and-out clones, moves much like Sonic Booms, Flash-kicks and Hundred Hand Slaps feature throughout, with the titular Karnov calling out “fire” with his fire breath attack. Of course, a number of games from this period feature similar special moves (and this one does at least have some unique attacks) but even a few of the regular, non-special moves seem to have been blatantly copied from Street Fighter, including some Zangief-style grapples and a Blanka-like slide. There are less options available however, as there are only two strengths of punch/kick rather than three.

Despite these similarities, the brawling is not as fluid, moves don’t flow together well and fights become a series of odd taps here and there, although the weak point system adds a little bit of strategy. Each character has a spot where they’re especially vulnerable to attacks and should hits be repeatedly landed the character gets stunned, leaving them open to further attack. Weak points are certain items of clothing (such as a headband) which flash the more they are hit, but some are easier to get than others; they are often struck without really trying.

Other games may provide better fighting, but the rounds are not devoid of entertainment and you can still have fun from turning a bout around with a well-timed special move. There’s some replayability in trying to clear the game with each character to get the different endings and should you get really good then there’s a bonus fight against an Ox for you. The usual adjustable difficulty (8 settings) is present in the options menu if you’d like a tougher/easier path through the game, and a second player can join in at any time to challenge you to a fight.

The usual ACA Hi Score and Caravan modes are here giving you one credit/five minutes to rack up as many points as possible to try and move up the online leaderboards. Like most fighters these modes aren’t as appealing as in other genres (like shmups), but do provide you with some alternative ways to play.

Conclusion

Karnov’s Revenge can provide some entertainment, but attacks don’t flow together with ease, sometimes making button mashing more effective (and quicker) than a well-timed series of planned moves. The weak point system can add a bit of strategy as you target certain spots on an opponent, but with some characters more susceptible to attacks than others it’s not a system that works that well or is particularly balanced. Ultimately, more accomplished fighters are available on the Neo Geo (any entry from Fatal Fury, Samurai Shodown or King of Fighters series will do), and a number of these can be downloaded on Switch. Pick one of those over this rather limp and uninspired title.