Author: sick skills

It’s Nintendo Download Update time and we have another busy week to enjoy in North America. The Switch eShop has a bumper line-up to consider, of course, though the Wii U and 3DS don’t miss out entirely; the little handheld even has a big-time RPG from Atlus that’s out soon. There’s plenty to consider, so let’s get to it.

Switch Retail Download

88 Heroes: 98 Heroes Edition (Rising Star Games, $29.95USD) – An action platformer with an interesting twist; you have 88 levels to clear with a time limit of 88 seconds in each. The gameplay seems to throw in various twists to keep things interesting, and on Switch it includes all of the DLC that was sold separately in other versions.

Switch eShop

Wulverblade (Fully Illustrated, $19.99USD) – The beat ‘em up genre isn’t as popular as it once was, but this intriguing release does an excellent job of reminding us of its merits. Rooted in British history and packed full of passion, it’s a brutally tough game but one we gave a hearty recommendation in our Wulverblade review.

The Flame in the Flood (The Molasses Flood, $14.99USD) – Created by a team of former ‘AAA’ developers, this arrives on Switch as the Complete Edition. An intriguing ‘roguelite’ survival game, you travel along the river and alight at various towns and buildings to seek gear and vital supplies. We’ll bring you a review soon, but in the meantime here’s an interview with the game’s designer.

Yono and the Celestial Elephants (Plug In Digital, $14.99USD) – A rather charming adventure game in which a plucky elephant explores, tackles puzzles and even gets into a bit of combat. Introduced in the most recent Nindies Showcase it’s undoubtedly appealing, but we’ll see whether it’s worth a purchase in our upcoming review.

Rogue Trooper Redux (RebellionInteract, $24.99USD) – Based on the 2000 AD comic strip, this uses the 2006 original – which was ported to the Wii in 2009 under the title Rogue Trooper: The Quartz Zone Massacre – as its template, adding various upgrades for this HD remaster. We don’t have many shooters on the Switch so we’ll definitely give it a look. Available from 17th October.

Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure (Merge Games, $29.99USD) – Also coming to retail in November, this is a physics-based 3D platformer aims to encourage reminiscing over the genre’s golden era while introducing its own ideas. In some ways it succeeds but there are some flaws; we gave it a light recommendation in our Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure review.

Don’t Knock Twice (Wales Interactive, $12.49USD) – Developed alongside a film with the same name, this is a first-person horror game in which you explore a ‘grand manor house’ and try to save your daughter; it could be good Halloween fare. Available from 17th October.

Neon Chrome (10Tons, $14.99USD) – A ‘top-down Cyberpunk shooter, this looks big on action and supports co-op for up to four players if you want to tackle it with a buddy. It has procedurally generated stages on offer but struggles to inspire that ‘one-more go’ feeling, as we explain in our Neon Chrome review.

Putty Pals (Harmonious Games, $9.99USD) – In this colourful, feel-good adventure you can tackle colour-based puzzles with a friend; the co-op gameplay would seem to be a perfect match for the Switch. We’ll see whether it’s worth sharing with a gaming buddy in a review.

Squareboy vs Bullies: Arena Edition (Ratalaika Games, $4.99USD) – A beat ‘em up that was once on mobile, you can brawl alone or with a friend to beat up wannabe tormentors. A reasonable game, albeit one perhaps lacking a little overall, we gave it a modest recommendation in our review.

The King of Fighters ’95 (HAMSTER, $7.99USD) – Another ASA release, in this case continuing our run of KoF titles. This second game in the series brings a rather welcome option that would go to become a series staple: You are not confined to pre-determined teams, so you can pick any characters from the roster to make your own dream trio. That said, its arguably superior successor is already available.

Switch eShop Demo

Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas (FDG Entertainment, free)

3DS Retail Download

Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth (SEGA, $39.99USD) – The DS and 3DS have been lucky enough to have plenty of these RPG titles from Atlus, with this fifth main entry giving us another taste of its cartographic exploration and adventure. We enjoyed some time with it in this first impressions article. Available from 17th October.

3DS eShop

Little Adventure on the Prairie (Infinite Madaa, $2.99USD) –With a name like that we thought this would be a storybook adventure, but it’s actually a short platformer in which you’re encouraged to “venture through 12 levels of pure slaughter and mindlessly try to kill all the monsters that are facing you”. Crikey.

3DS HOME Theme

Etrian Odyssey V: Beyond the Myth Theme

Wii U eShop

Volgarr the Viking (Crazy Viking, $9.99) – Arrives on the Wii U a week after its Switch release. It pitches itself as a tough action platformer in which you’ll die a lot. It looks a tad rough visually, but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a lot of fun; we’ll try it out for review.

Wii U Virtual Console

MOTOROADER (Konami, $5.99USD) – An overhead racer that likely had a lot of competition back in the day, and perhaps struggled as a result. We were certainly unimpressed in our Wii Virtual Console review.

Legend of Hero Tonma (Konami, $5.99USD) – We described it as a kids’ version of Ninja Spirit once upon a time, a colourful action platformer that arguably fails to live up to its contemporaries. You can read all about it in our Legend of Hero Tonma review from the Wii Virtual Console days.

Digital Champ: Battle Boxing (Konami, $5.99USD) – An interesting idea and technically impressive for the time, this first-person boxing game falls short once it steps into the ring; that’s what we thought in our review, anyway.

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As always Nintendo of America wants you to browse the eShop and check out the official sales and deals website for discount details.

That’s the Nintendo Download line-up this week – let us know what you’ll be downloading in the poll and comments below.

Those of you who follow the exploits of former Rare employees as closely as we do here at Nintendo Life may be  aware of Raging Justice, a side-scrolling fighter inspired by Streets of Rage and Final Fight from Nic Makin, who worked at the UK studio on titles such as Kameo and Perfect Dark Zero.

Makin has been promoting the game tirelessly for the past few months with Xbox One, Windows 10 and Steam being his target platforms initially. However, he has revealed to us that Switch is a “priority”:

We don’t know about you but we can’t get enough of these old-school arcade brawlers, and this would be the perfect compliment to the superb Wulverblade. Would you buy this on Switch? Let us know by making a ruckus in the comments section below.

Square Enix is currently hard at work remaking one of its most beloved JRPGs, Secret of Mana. This SNES classic is right up there with Zelda and Final Fantasy in terms of player adoration, but amazingly the remake isn’t coming to Switch.

Speaking to Red Bull, producer Masaru Oyamada explains why Nintendo’s console is missing out:

Development for the title began before the Switch was announced, so it was definitely beyond our expectations to see the level of anticipation for the release on the platform grow this much. 

However, he didn’t shut the door completely:

In terms of our current circumstance, we are unable to immediately state that this will become available on the Switch, but we hope to continue listening to the various requests from our fans.

Interestingly, Oyamada also seemed to hint that Seiken Densetsu 3 – AKA: Secret of Mana 2 – could potentially get a western release at some point:

We do not have any information that can be shared at this moment in time. I, too, would definitely like to do something about this task, so I would be grateful for everyone’s continued support for the Mana series.

Switch fans will have to make do with Seiken Densetsu Collection for the time being, although sadly that still hasn’t been confirmed for western release.

If you watch a bit of YouTube or follow wider trends of PC gaming, you likely know all about PLAYERUNKNOWN’S BATTLEGROUNDS. It’s taken the Battle Royale format and popularised it to an impressive degree, becoming one of the biggest active games in the world and the subject of console wars. Microsoft secured an upcoming port for Xbox, while PS4 owners get Fortnite: Battle Royale.

It’s hot topic stuff, which does leave Nintendo out somewhat. Black Riddles Studios – a small independent company – is trying to step into the void, announcing through its Fig crowdfunding campaign that its game – Crazy Justice – is now targeting the Switch for Q2 2018. It’s a shooter than in some ways resembles Fortnite more due to its options for building walls and customising abilities. Pitching itself as ‘Battle Royale’ does seem to be a push based on the available information; it seems more like an arena shooter with gameplay elements (such as a shrinking safe zone) inspired by PUBG. Whether the maps are big enough to take it beyond the ‘arena’ characterisation will be interesting to see.

See for yourself in the videos below.

At the time of writing the crowdfunding campaign is nearly 70% of the way to its $30,000USD goal, with the Switch download version added in a $15 backer category. As always with crowdfunding, backing projects is at your own risk.

As the debut game for a new studio it looks interesting, in any case; we’ll see how it turns out in 2018.

We’re heading into another busy period of enticing releases on the Switch eShop, and The Flame in the Flood is certainly one to consider seriously. A ‘rogue-lite’ with a focus on survival in a post apocalyptic world may sound rote and by the numbers, but the game is more innovative than the description implies. From its visuals to its gameplay hooks and twists it aims to set itself apart, right down to an impressive soundtrack for which the composer (Chuck Ragan) immersed himself in the lifestyle of living in the country, alongside the American riverscapes that form the basis of the game.

It’s an eye-catching game, and with its arrival on the Switch eShop we took the chance to pose questions to the game’s designer, Forrest Dowling, to learn more about the release and the impressive team (The Molasses Flood) behind it.

First of all, can you introduce yourself to our readers and talk a little about your past work?

Hi, I’m Forrest Dowling, one of the founders of The Molasses Flood and the designer of The Flame in the Flood. I used to work in AAA as a level designer on shooters, including Homefront and BioShock Infinite.

The Molasses Flood was once described (by yourselves!) as a small group of “AAA refugees”; how did you come together to form a studio?

So after BioShock Infinite, Irrational Games closed and about 90 percent of the staff was laid off, including myself. Boston at the time was not a great place to be a game developer, as there had been layoffs at every major studio in the area recently. At that point it looked like the options for me were to move, or start my own thing. Fortunately, there were a lot of other talented people in the area that were also interested in starting an indie studio, so we were able to form a group from the ashes of Irrational.

The game was Kickstarted back in 2014; can you talk a little about the process of crowdfunding at that time? What were the biggest secrets to the campaign’s success?

At the time we didn’t really see any other means of funding the game, so we just kind of waded into it. It felt even by then like the wave had crested a bit and projects were getting smaller returns. I think The Banner Saga and Hyper Light Drifter were maybe the last truly original titles to get over a half million, and they were both over a year old at that point. The process itself was a lot like pitching a project for any source of funding. Come up with a bunch of stuff that communicates what you want to do, make a trailer or images that sell the idea, and put it into the world. There is the added complexity of needing to figure out rewards, price things out, determine what shipping will be, all that, but it wasn’t too tough.

As far as why it was successful, I don’t really feel comfortable saying it was absolutely one thing or another, because I really don’t know. I think it was that we told a clear story of what the experience would be, and focused on the game rather than us as creators. I don’t think that helping some bearded game dev in his mid 30’s make an independent game is a very compelling pitch, so we focused on what we thought was, which was a new take on survival in a beautiful world.

TFIF is described as “a rogue-lite river journey in post societal America”. First of all, how did the original idea, concept and look come together?

The original idea was really a merging of two ideas, one from me and one from our art director. I wanted to make a pared down survival game about real world survival, and Sinc (the AD) wanted to make a game about exploring tiny worlds… basically top down camera, limited spaces to explore. We jammed those two ideas together and everything else came from there. The river, the region, the music.

As far as the look, that was all Sinc. When I approached him about working together my initial pitch was that I wanted to work on a game that looked like his original paintings brought to life. The look was just him interpreting his existing work.

Can you talk about the soundtrack by Chuck Ragan and why it’s important to the experience?

Early on in concepting, I was working on playlists of inspirational music to use as reference, with the thought that maybe we’d get a musician to record an original piece. I didn’t realize at the time that we’d luck out and get not only an original track but an entire album. I think it’s most important because it comes from the same place that a lot of the inspiration for the game came from. Chuck wrote it in the woods, by a camp fire, while boating and fishing during the day. He got what we were trying to do immediately, as it’s about a lot of stuff that he loves. I think it does a huge amount to help ground the player in the experience of being in the wilderness.

For those unfamiliar with the game, can you talk about the modes on offer and the main gameplay loops they can expect?

There are two modes: campaign and endless. Both are procedurally generated and have the same gameplay, the only differences are that campaign also has an easier setting, and there are a few story beats that the player will encounter as well as an actual ending. The gameplay itself is a mix of river rafting and exploration. You encounter islands, stop, gather supplies, camp, hunt, craft, all that sort of stuff, then get back on the river and look for another island where you can gather more supplies. It’s sort of a constant stop and go.

What were the biggest challenges when originally developing the game? Were any particular aspects of the design tough to balance?

I think from a design standpoint, that making a survival game that’s just about actual survival, and not really about combat, was tougher than I expected as it’s surprisingly mathematical. It’s all about the numbers of how much you lose energy, how fast you get hungry, vs the frequency of supplies, how much they help you recover, and all that. It’s really a razor’s edge to balance, as on one side it’s trivially easy, and on the other it’s impossibly hard.

It arrived on PC in early 2016; what were the biggest positives and negatives of the launch? How was player feedback?

I think the positives are that we largely accomplished what we set out to do, and did so within the budget and timeline we established for ourselves. Player feedback was good overall, but there was a lot we patched up pretty quickly as well. The biggest negative was probably a really bad audio crash that we didn’t find pre-launch which took a week or two to figure out.

You released the game on consoles earlier this year, but at what point did you know it’d come to Switch?

It was only recently that plans were finalized. Really the whole port has been in the hands of Curve (Curve Digital, publisher of the game on Switch), they handled all the work with Nintendo as well as the tech side of things.

Have you had to make any notable adjustments to the game to bring it to Nintendo systems? Does it utilise any of the hardware’s unique features?

It’s really a straight port. We did need to do a bunch of UI work to make sure that everything was crisp and clear on both the portable and docked resolutions.

On a technical level, did Curve give much detail on porting to the Switch hardware in terms of its capabilities, engine support and so on?

I couldn’t really give a solid answer, but Curve was able to get the port up and running really fast. It seems like Switch support with Unreal is really great.

How do you think the game is best experienced, and how do you think Switch owners will play it? Do you see it as a game for longer sessions on TV, or dip-in play on the handheld?

One reason I’ve been excited to see The Flame in the Flood on Switch is because the pacing of it is such that it’s well suited for both short form and longer session gaming. You never spend too long on a single island or length of river, so it’s really easy to find a good spot to take a break.

Are you confident that the eShop audience will be drawn to the game’s concept and approach?

I am not, but I’ll couch that in saying that I’m not confident in my ability to predict anything. I hope so, and I think it’s a really good fit, but it’ll be up to the people browsing the eShop to tell me if it’s working for them.

Having now seen this project come to Switch, do you have plans to support the system again in the future? What are your broader personal thoughts on the device?

Personally I’m excited about it. I really love my Switch, and I think it’s really interesting that I hear the same sentiment from just about any Switch owner I speak to. I think that’s a good sign for the long term life of the console, particularly as it seems like it’s getting a lot of great support from 3^rd parties. As far as doing a Switch version of future titles, assuming it continues to be a successful platform for 3^rd parties we’ll definitely keep it in mind.

Finally, is there a big pitch you’d like to give out readers for TFIF on Switch?  

A big pitch! I guess I’ll say that I think the Switch is a really great platform for The Flame in the Flood, and the ability to play a river survival game while maybe even surviving on a river is pretty compelling.

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We’d like to thank Forrest Dowling for his time; The Flame in the Flood launches on 12th October on the Switch eShop.

Charles Martinet is famous to Nintendo fans the world over as the voice of Mario, and has filled this role brilliantly since the ’90s. However, it would be doing Martinet a great injustice to assume this is the only thing he has done in his illustrious career; he’s acted on stage, in film and on TV, with movies such as The Game and Nine Months to his name.

However, like so many actors, Martinet has some skeletons in his closet; roles which were perhaps taken for the money rather than any promise of artistic fulfilment or critical acclaim. The 1986 corporate video shown above seems to fit this description; in it, Martinet assumes the role of a rapping Dracula, who rises from the grave to sing the praises of ECAD Systems. Later in the video, he becomes the swashbuckling Sinbad and continues to rap about things like time-saving system solutions and all that good stuff.

This may well be the best thing we’ve seen on the internet in the past year. No, make that the past decade.

With DOOM and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus heading to Switch, many are understandably intrigued to see exactly how well they will perform on the system. Recently we shared details on how DOOM is set to look on the console – perhaps most notably including the fact that it will run at 720p in both docked and undocked modes – and, thanks to a Gamespot interview with the game’s director (Jens Matthies), we now know to expect a similar performance for Wolfenstein II.

When asked about the experience we can expect to have with the Switch version of the game, Matthies mentions DOOM as being a good “reference point”, emphasizing that both games are running on the same engine. This should, in theory, mean that both games will perform equally in terms of things such as their graphical output and framerates. It’s also reiterated that, beyond that, “it doesn’t really matter what kind of platform you’re on, it’s still the same game”.

As you may well be aware, DOOM is scheduled for release this holiday season with Wolfenstein II following in its footsteps sometime next year. Once we can get our hands on the former properly later this year we should have a better understanding of what to expect for the latter. That said, we were pleased with what we saw when we played it in the handheld mode not too long ago.

Are you looking forward to these games coming to Nintendo Switch, and do you think they’ll hold up well on the hardware?

It’s the middle of the week, which means we have the Media Create chart results out of Japan; there are some interesting points to consider in what was clearly a relatively quiet week in the market.

Starting with software we have Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions making its debut at number one. That’s a positive, but its sales of 25,788 units are undeniably modest; for comparison Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam shifted nearly double that number when it launched in late 2015. That’s it for new Nintendo system games in the top 20, though in a quiet week we do have Splatoon 2 and Mario Kart 8 Deluxe ticking along nicely in 2nd and 3rd.

1. [3DS] Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser’s Minions (Nintendo, 10/05/17) – 25,788 (New)
2. [NSW] Splatoon 2 (Nintendo, 07/21/17) – 22,338 (1,212,901)
3. [NSW] Mario Kart 8 Deluxe (Nintendo, 04,28,17) – 13,392 (734,133)
4. [PS4] FIFA 18 (Electronic Arts, 09/29/17) – 13,169 (69,088)
5. [PS4] The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel III (Limited Edition Included) (Falcom, 09/28/17) – 12,581 (99,841)
6. [NSW] Pokken Tournament DX (Nintendo, 09/22/17) – 11,831 (88,768)
7. [PS4] Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen (Capcom, 10/05/17) – 11,666 (New)
8. [PS4] Sniper: Ghost Warrior 3 (Ubisoft, 10/05/17) – 10,825 (New)
9. [NSW] Fire Emblem Warriors (Nintendo, 09/28/17) – 8,024 (49,514)
10. [PS4] Pro Evolution Soccer 2018 (Konami, 09/14/17) – 6,266 (97,712)
11. [NSW] The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Limited Edition Included) (Nintendo, 03/03/17) – 6,196 (604,865)
12. [PSV] Tokyo Clanpool (Limited Edition Included) (Compile Heart, 10/05/17) – 5,197 (New)
13. [3DS] Fire Emblem Warriors (Nintendo, 09/28/17) – 4,952 (23,309)
14. [NSW] Monster Hunter XX Nintendo Switch Ver. (Capcom, 08/25/17) – 4,785 (151,668)
15. [NSW] FIFA 18 (Electronic Arts, 09/29/17) – 4,660 (17,276)
16. [3DS] Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age (Square Enix, 07/29/17) – 4,370 (1,737,922)
17. [NSW] Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 for Nintendo Switch (Bandai Namco, 09/07/17) – 4,339 (40,424)
18. [3DS] The Snack World: Trejarers (Level-5, 08/10/17) – 4,126 (176,959)
19. [NSW] Arms (Nintendo, 06/16/17) – 3,340 (232,688)
20. [PS4] Destiny 2 (SIE, 09/06/17) – 3,205 (91,893)

Moving on to hardware numbers are down for the top two, with Switch losing nearly half its sales from the previous week but still coming out well on top. The New 3DS LL and New 2DS LL (XL) both saw increases, however. Results are below with last week’s sales in brackets.

1. Switch – 38,204 (73,231)
2. PlayStation 4 – 16,680 (22,822)
3. New 3DS LL – 12,658 (9,915)
4. New 2DS LL – 8,534 (8,359)
5. PlayStation 4 Pro – 5,869 (6,547)
6. PlayStation Vita – 3,545 (3,732)
7. 2DS – 1,594 (1,655)
8. New 3DS – 265 (392)
9. Xbox One – 186 (71)
10. PlayStation 3 – 72 (64)
11. Wii U – 45 (68)

A reasonable week for Nintendo, though the sales of Superstar Saga’s re-release are a little disappointing; it likely reflects a mix of its remake status and declining interest in 3DS titles. As for the Switch, it’s still comfortably leading the way in hardware; here’s hoping Nintendo gets plenty of units in stock as the shopping season heats up.