Author: sick skills

While a little bare at launch, Nintendo Switch’s library of eShop titles has exploded in recent weeks, now making it a virtual hotspot for new and exclusive releases. Joining the party with a few titles of its own is Merge Games, a game publisher that has been working with a number of different indie developers to bring some of the best and brightest new titles to the Switch eShop. We recently caught up with Merge Games to give some of its upcoming releases a go.

Release date: October 11, 2017
Physical release: November 16, 2017

Imagine, if you will, a world in which the Global Postal Service has failed to such an extent that drastic measures have to be taken. You may wonder how we could ask you to imagine such a dire situation when it is so far removed from reality, but know that developer Prospect Games has come up with the perfect solution – sentient, self-delivering packages. In an attempt to put this theory to the test, Prospect Games created Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure, a mail delivery simulator disguised as a colourful, humorous, 3D platforming adventure.

Originally released on Steam in September of 2016 and bouncing its way to home consoles throughout 2017, Unbox fits comfortably as part of the resurgence of the 3D platformer genre that was so popular in the polygonal days of the ’90s. Drawing obvious inspiration from titles such as Banjo-Kazooie and Super Mario 64, this title encourages exploration and collection while simultaneously guiding the player through its open world with objectives and missions.

Well, we’ve actually been able to publish our Unbox: Newbie’s Adventure review ahead of its release, so click the link for our full lowdown on its positives and negatives.

Release date: October 18, 2017

Just in time for Halloween and the spooky season, developer Baroque Decay has a treat for action and horror game fans who have a preference for pixel art. Borrowing gameplay elements from early Legend of Zelda titles and combining them with stealth horror, Switch owners can look forward to the upcoming release of The Count Lucanor. While at first it may look like a brightly coloured adventure title, what lies beneath the surface is a dark and at times unsettling story of survival.

Taking on the role of a young boy named Hans, players are tasked with exploring the titular Count‘s labyrinthine castle, picking up clues that will help in revealing the Count’s true name. In order to move forward in his quest, Hans must solve a series of puzzles and find hidden keys strewn about the castle. The exploration felt a bit like going through the world map in a Metroidvania game, where each time we opened a new door or unblocked a passageway it seemed to connect to another untouched part of the castle. This aspect of the exploration made us genuinely want to keep digging deeper, with the knowledge that if we found one more key then we might be able to get to that treasure chest that’s just out of reach.

From what we saw there doesn’t seem to be any combat involved, requiring players to solve puzzles and escape enemies using stealth and by keeping their wits about them. The most important tool at our disposal was a pocket full of candles that could be held or placed strategically throughout the castle in an effort to illuminate potential threats. The candles were also useful in marking the paths that we had already explored to circumvent any potential backtracking. While we never felt like Hans was growing stronger as you would expect of the hero in a more traditional exploration based game, we did feel as though we were becoming more resourceful with each new inventory item that we picked up.

Our time with The Count Lucanor was short, but it was just enough to get a feel for what the full package had in store. It’s an adventure game that looks inviting from the outside, but it definitely has a dark side to it waiting to be explored. Assuming this one hits the projected release date, it’s definitely a game we’ll be looking forward to playing in time for Halloween.

Release date: Q4 2017

Starting at the top with Unbox and working our way down, we can safely say that we’ve landed on the darkest of Merge’s three upcoming Switch titles with The Long Reach. Developed by the small team at Painted Black Games, The Long Reach is a side-scrolling adventure game that explores the human psyche through a sci-fi and horror narrative. It’s also pretty funny at times, making good use of well-written dialogue and gallows humour necessary to get you through what would otherwise be an entirely bleak drama.

The gameplay is simple, consisting mostly of running back and forth in 2-dimensional settings and interacting with people and objects around you to solve puzzles. In terms of gameplay, The Long Reach isn’t a huge departure from previous titles in the adventure genre, but it recognizes its limitations and makes up for them with a strong narrative. Even though it utilizes a pixelated art style, it is very effective in conveying different environments that feel unique, and the sound design is put to good use in creating an eerie atmosphere. We definitely recommend playing with headphones to enhance the feeling that there’s someone or something lurking around the corner or breathing down your neck.

We were immediately sucked into the story and kept playing with the excitement of always wanting to know what was in the next room or who was hiding around the corner. Without realizing it we ended up demoing The Long Reach for nearly an hour before we were finally told that we were playing the completed game and not just a demo build. It was explained that this is the type of game that is meant to be played in one sitting, so the whole experience only lasts a few hours. It was at this point that we put our controller down at the risk of spending another few hours playing through the entire story. Given the option though, we wish we could have stayed.

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So there you go, three more intriguing Switch eShop titles. Let us know which of these will be going on your wishlist.

Despite its incredible popularity in Japan, Koei Tecmo’s Warriors (or, if you prefer, Musou) series has never really captured western hearts and minds in quite the same way. To the outside observer, the series appears to be little more than mindless button-bashing, with no tactical nuance or depth. As fans of the franchise will tell you, this couldn’t be further from the truth and despite the odd bum outing (what series doesn’t have those?), we’ve seen some addictive and compelling adventures over the years – the most obvious of which (from a Nintendo perspective) is of course Hyrule Warriors, which arrived on Wii U and was later ported to 3DS.

Despite being a solid game, Hyrule Warriors didn’t seem to change the western perception of the Musou franchise all that much; when Fire Emblem Warriors was confirmed there were a few grumbles and complaints within the Nintendo ranks about “another” Musou crossover title. However, having played the game over the past week we’re happy to report that such scepticism is largely unwarranted; in fact, by fusing Intelligent Systems’ famous turn-based strategy universe with the combat action the Warriors series is famed for, we could finally have the game which shows the doubters just how deep and involving it can be.

True, the seemingly mindless but incredibly enjoyable hack-and-slash action is present and correct, aided immeasurably by some impressive performance on Switch, even when played in handheld mode. Everything shifts along at an urgent pace, with attacks filling the screen and enemies scattering like rag dolls. This much we expect from a Warriors game, but Omega Force and Team Ninja haven’t lazily slapped the Fire Emblem name on this in the expectation that the characters and lore alone will sell the concept; they have thoughtfully taken elements from the franchise and adapted them into the core mechanics. So it’s possible to issue orders to units from the grid-based map screen, switch between active characters at the push of a button and even team-up for more potent attacks, building your bond level as you go. The all-important weapon triangle appears too, and must be taken into account when attacking certain units.

Fan-service is everywhere in this title, and while it’s great to see so many famous faces and observe how they interact in the bonkers dimension-skipping storyline, it does feel somewhat forced at points; this zany plot was the only reasonable way in which the developers could possibly have Chrom, Marth and Corrin all inhabiting the same battlefield at once, but it pushes the realms of plausibility at more than one point, even for a game set in a magical fantasy realm filled with dragons and monsters. Thank goodness then for the bonus History Mode, which allows you to revisit classic battles from past Fire Emblem games without having to put up with all the portal-based hokum seen in the main Story Mode.

Another big talking point with Fire Emblem Warriors is that it’s the first Switch title to offer players the opportunity to select the kind of performance they want. “Quality” improves the visuals at the expense of frame rate, while “Performance” drops the detail in order to hit 60fps. Having experimented with both we found ourselves favouring the latter, as smoothness always trumps visual fidelity in our book, but it’s nice to have the option all the same. Even when playing with “Quality” mode enabled, the 30fps frame rate is acceptable; however, when playing with two people in splitscreen things become noticeably choppier.

We’ll save a more detailed analysis for the full review, but at the moment Fire Emblem Warriors is effortlessly soaking up the majority of our spare time, which is no mean feat when you consider the abundance of amazing Switch games on offer right now. Hopefully this entry will help the Warriors series gain some semblance of respect amongst western players, because it’s certainly shaping up to be one of the best instalments we’ve ever played.

While Super Putty wasn’t the most memorable game on the Super Nintendo, it was nonetheless a fun platformer which got remade for the Wii U and 3DS under the guise of Putty Squad. 

System 3 still appears to have unfinished business with the amorphous blue blob as a Amazon UK listing has revealed that Super Putty Squad is on its way to Switch retail on December 1st.

We’re guessing that the “Super” game will be based on regular Putty Squad which is available on most modern console platforms now. Here’s some blurb from Amazon’s page which gives an idea of what to expect:

One of Retro gaming’s best loved heroes hits the Nintendo Switch in Super Putty Squad! This critically acclaimed platform adventure is back with stunning new rendered graphics, retuned and refined gameplay elements combined with an all new tutorial mode for supreme playability. Bounce, squidgy and stretch your way to victory as you help Putty save his kidnapped friends from certain death. Use Putty’s extraordinary abilities to Stretch, Absorb, Fly, Inflate, Float, Mimic and Explode your way to pure platforming nirvana.

– Putty is Back! A timeless classic makes the Switch!
– Over 100 levels of stretchy mayhem to overcome!
– Collect and unlock extra trophies and explore cunningly hidden levels.
– Unique Sticker Book feature allows the player to track progress
– Cartridge size 8GB

Are you looking forward to trying this out in December? Let us know if you are ready to get your putty on with a comment below.

Over the past few weeks Nintendo has been publishing interviews with key developers of various SNES titles to coincide with the recent release of the SNES Mini and, bringing this fascinating series to a close, a sixth interview has been released to talk about Kirby Super Star.

The interview is held with Masahiro Sakurai, creator of the Kirby series and director of this particular title. Sakurai-san is perhaps best known not only for the Kirby franchise, but also that other little series Super Smash Bros. (you may have heard of it). Naturally, this is a great opportunity to get some inside information on his game-making process, and there are some interesting things to learn.

Topics covered within the article include Sakurai’s initial dealings with Nintendo and what was expected of him from early titles, the “three pillars” that served as a basis for the development of Kirby Super Star, and how the decision for a two-player Kirby game came about. Sakurai-san also reveals that when the game is left idle, the demos you see on screen were actually played by him! You can check out the full interview here if you wish – it is an interesting read for those who like to know more about the development process of their favourite titles.

What do you think? Are you a fan of Kirby Super Star? Let us know your thoughts on the interview in the comments below.

Killer7 was one of the more unique games in the GameCube’s library. Developed for Capcom by Suda51 and Grasshopper, it was the last of the “Capcom Five” games for the GameCube (well technically the fourth, as Dead Phoenix got cancelled).

Killer7 was certainly quite intriguing and had a strong adult theme. The gameplay took the form of a first-person shooter which was on-rails. The character you played was limited to predetermined paths and the controls felt very clunky, even back in 2005 when it was released. Despite this, it gained a cult following.

In a recent interview with Suda51, he was asked if he’d like to remake any of his old Grasshopper games and on the topic of Killer7 he said:

The thing about Killer7 is that, right now, it’s not easy to play that game anymore right now. That’s definitely something I’d like to maybe revisit and update.

We’d love to see a remake of this unique game with improved controls. Let us know if you have fond memories of this one from the GameCube days or if you think Suda51 should leave this in the past and concentrate his efforts on the upcoming Travis Strikes Again: No More Heroes for Switch with a comment below.

Bullies, they are just the worst, aren’t they? If they aren’t giving you an atomic wedgie then they are trying to flush your head down the toilet. In Squareboy Vs Bullies: Arena Edition the titular Squareboy has had enough of the bullying and sets out to put them in their place in this old school beat ’em up by Rohan Narang, which is coming to the Switch this week priced at $4.99.

Here’s what we can expect from this beat’em up published by the lovely folks at Ratalaika Games:

• Retro pixel art graphics and OST with 14 different chiptune tracks.
• Fight in many different locations across Squareburg.
• New Arena mode
• Never before seen Bullies.
• New UI screen that takes advantage of entire screen.
• New co-op mode only for Nintendo Switch.

We have to say it all sounds pretty good, like River City Ransom with fighters that look like they have just escaped from the Emoji Movie. Sign us up!

Tak Fujii is one of the most established and charismatic figures in the Japanese gaming industry today. He spent twenty years at Konami in Chicago and Tokyo, filled roles such as sound designer, director and producer, as well as playing guitar on the incredible Castlevania: Symphony of the Night score and working on several Pro Evolution Soccer titles before his departure in 2014. Fujii is probably best known in the west for his unforgettable E3 presentation of Xbox 360 hack and slash RPG Ninety-Nine Nights 2. At the Tokyo Game Show this year, Fujii publicly showcased his new project for the first time, Gal Metal, which is scheduled for a February 2018 release on Switch. 

This music rhythm game uses the individual Joy-Con controllers as drumsticks, and boasts a vivid anime art style and a character-driven story. With the history of the “music video game” swaying from revered (Rock Band, Guitar Hero) to the “interesting” (who could forget that infamous E3 2008 Wii Music presentation?), Gal metal has the opportunity to take the genre and the fresh hardware to new heights. 

We caught up with Tak shortly after TGS to find out more.

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Nintendo Life: First of all, thank you for taking the time to talk to us and congratulations on the announcement of Gal Metal coming exclusively to Nintendo Switch. The showing at TGS (with mascot and instruments, no less!) certainly made an impact – how was the press and public reaction to the game? 

Tak Fujii: Brilliant! We have had pre-opened announcement sight and teaser movie, which lead to three big questions from the public. One: Who is making the game? DMM, a PC browser game company works for console title, exclusively for Nintendo Switch. Two: WHY? It seems high school girl does something with drums. Three: What kind of game is that? Drumming is awesome and it was heavy. What really is that? 

Our message was simple. All answers will be unveiled at TGS. Come to our presentation. I had a great presentation of the game on the first day of TGS, showing a brand new design of music game with exclusive play ability using the Joy-Con. All elements together, I believe I did make a great impact regarding the media and public. Most of reactions from them are positive. Thanks to the Nintendo Switch and our cute red drummer, NYANGO-STAR, and lovely red guitar, of which there is only one available in the world.

What is your role on the project?

TF: Producer. However, I am taking on more roles than I used to be as ‘producer’ in my previous job. DMM is venture company and therefore I have to take more roles if I come up with something I’d like to do, which might include marketing, licensing, sales, collaboration, etc, etc. It makes me really busy but it’s really fun to meet lots of people especially in the music industry (because Gal Metal belongs to the music game genre). Of course, the concept of game is mine so I have to conduct the team to make my game to be new and fun enough, which is the same as a producer’s role in the industry. 

How big is your team?

TF: There is no team in DMM, it’s only me to drive game development. We do have marketing and sales people but not as many compared to other console publishers. The dev team is external, Now Production – based in Oaska, Japan. They are console experts and have good experience in making music games so I can rely on what they make. The director of Gal Metal is Shuhou Imai, who has great experience in both writing and creating video games. 

How long has Gal Metal been in development?

TF: That’s a secret! But not longer than planned, thanks to the development environment in 21st century. 

When did you start working on it in relation to your departure from Konami? 

TF: Gal Metal started a while after I had left Konami. Again, DMM has never thought to release a console title because DMM is a PC game platform and has had no business with other platforms, including iOS and Android at that time. So I was getting involved in other projects, such as e-Sports and VR. I had great success on a VR project at TGS 2016. However, DMM is a fun company. They give any opportunity to do anything (only if it seems valuable, of course). Thus, Gal Metal is not something that happened immediately after my resignation from Konami, and had no relation to it. 

Was it always your intention to make a music game at some point?

TF: Yes. I started my game career as a sound composer. Music and sounds are always part of my life. I have always dreamed about making a great music game through my career, but Konami already innovated by making great music franchise titles and I was getting involved with other projects (which was an awesome AAA job anyway) and had no chance to make another music game. So finally, here is my dream come true. It took a while but I made it happen. However, I just didn’t want to copy old school music titles. This format has been around over 20 years and I really wanted to try something totally new. Gal Metal has no falling note indicators and you have to focus on audio rather than notation, which gives a feeling of playing real music in real band. I hope my new challenge would be accepted in the market. 

When did you first become aware of the ‘NX’, and when did you first experience the Switch?

TF: Unfortunately, DMM is not console company and I was not involved with ‘NX’ at all. I found and got Switch as a user, not a developer. I see brilliant game experiences through Nintendo’s first unavailing presentation. ‘Take console out to field and play together’. It’s sounds similar to what we had with the PSP and Nintendo DS, but it also felt totally different. Handhelds normally belong to personal playability, but this console is for multiple people. Remember when we had endless nights with Bomberman or NBA Jam? That’s the impact of Switch to me, and it doesn’t belong to living room anymore. It’s about taking the multi-player video game experience anywhere, which sounds awesome!

When was it decided to make Gal Metal exclusive on the Switch?

TF: Gal Metal is still a single player game, at the moment. Since there are no note indicators on screen, players have no need to focus on the screen, but instead listen to the audio from the console. This means other players also have no need to focus on the screen. Watching other players play is the most fun part of this game in my opinion. Remember most fun part of playing Just Dance? It’s us, observing players. With the Joy-Con and screen-less game play experience, Gal Metal has no other home but Switch. 

The Switch’s touch screen is being used with music games such as VOEZ and Deemo, but the Switch also has the Joy-Con feature. When did you first work on using them in Gal Metal? 

TF: We’ve decided to work on Switch because of the Joy-Con. As I said before, Gal Metal is really fun to play with others. Touching the screen holds the player in front of game screen, but the Joy-Con give you freedom to play around. Gal Metal is still a music game, but the experience you have is totally different to those other titles.

There have been music games in the past, such as Rock Band, that have various difficulty settings as well as being great multiplayer games. What’s the balance like in Gal Metal?

TF: Gal Metal is about a free drumming experience. The player decides which rhythm patterns may fit to each song. That gives no ‘good’ or ‘bad’ evaluation. However there are evaluation factors in the game which are really based on music composition theories. We know most of players maybe don’t know anything about drumming so their first entrance and experience would be ‘fun to swing’ and ‘fun to listen’. Gal Metal’s learning curves will take players a little deeper. I can’t tell you details right now, but there are mechanics where the player will learn better drumming by gaining better score in the game. I put a music gamification system in the game.

There is also a very strong visual style and character driven story – how did they start and develop?

TF: There’s almost no story in most music games. However, we had great teen memories with band in high school. I want players to love being part of a band. The band is about communicating with other players with music, not through words. It’s hard to explain, but you will know if you get into a band. I wanted to share that feeling and want to players to understand that feeling, and hopefully without games, they may have an interest in playing actual musical instruments. The core of this game is about playing drums in the band, and my dream is about increasing real band players from playing the game, and increase the number of metal lovers.

Regarding the actual music, is the whole game an original soundtrack? 

TF: They are all covers from classical music. It’s great to have actual recordings in the game like other music games. However, my focus in Gal Metal is ‘Build your rhythms as you like”. Therefore we haven’t use any existing sound tracks, which allows players to think and build their favorite rhythms. Again, building and improving music is one of the big core ideas of my design and I really want players to feel this. Additionally, people don’t like to play unknown songs so I picked famous classical pieces from the past 400 years, which are no doubt recognised as ‘great pieces of music’. Because they are famous, the player should be aware of how and when they build up in the song. The player may have instant ideas about what to do immediately. 

Did you ever consider crowdfunding for this project?

TF: Not at all. Crowdfunding is about marketing, in my opinion. There’s no need to go to crowdfunding if the team has enough budget to make games and do the marketing. I need both to make my game be known to the public. This is the main reason why I belong to a publisher (and platform) rather than building my own studio. 

It must be exciting working on such a new console and utilizing its unique features – when did communication with Nintendo start? 

TF: Very recently. I have to make sure my idea works on game properly and my presentation docs to Nintendo are not just a dream but something about to happen. Being a producer for a big publisher, I personally saw a lot of great presentations with brilliant documentations from developers and games that have never come out and melted millions of dollars for nothing. I am sure they’re going through lots of presentations million of times more than me, so I am very much prepared to start. 

What were your favorite Nintendo games growing up? 

TF: All of the Game & Watch series! I had them all and died to play them all! Of course Mario Brothers (in Arcade) and Donkey Kong (in Arcade) stole my heart and coins!

Thank you so much for your time, and we look forward to seeing more of Gal Metal soon. 

NBA 2K18 didn’t get off to the best of starts when it launched on the Nintendo Switch on 15th September. In short, it was all a bit of a mess and we ended running our review without a score.

While it’s taken way too long, the mega patch update #3 finally dropped for the Switch version of the game during the weekend. Here’s the laundry list of things it improves on:

– Fixed a case where game framerate would drop for the remainder of the game following a called timeout.
– Users are now able to view the individual attributes and their values when upgrading their players in MyCAREER.
– Gray indicators have been added underneath the feet of your teammates in the Playground; it is now much quicker and easier to discern your teammates from your opponents.
– Global settings/options will no longer reset to default after entering a MyTEAM game.
– Users will no longer lose their facial hair when re-scanning their face.
– Addressed a case where Draft-and-Stash players in MyLEAGUE/MyGM would be signed to a $0 contract, while simultaneously being duplicated in the upcoming rookie draft (new save required).
– Generated prospects in future seasons of MyLEAGUE/MyGM will now always have heights appropriate for their position (new save required).
– Free agents 32 years or older will no longer pass up big money offers to sign for the MLE in MyGM/MyLEAGUE.
– Users will no longer display negative badge progress following an exceptional performance in MyCAREER. For those currently experiencing this, continue playing and your tally will be incremented towards your next bonus.
– Fixed a hang that could occur when the user was scrolling down the list of available shirts in the T-Shirt Kiosk.
– Improved framerate in the court area of the Playground when games are being played on most/all of the courts.
– Addressed a hang that could occur when bringing up the squad menu in a completely full Neighborhood.
– Fixed a soft hang in Live Practice where the ball would not get picked up when using the ball machine.
– Fixed an issue where the camera would always point to the middle of the court if the user had the Auto Flip option enabled while in the broadcast camera(s).
– (Switch) Improved framerate/audio syncing during tunnel/locker room scenes in MyCAREER.
– (Switch) Fixed an issue that sometimes prevented Local Play from commencing when there were four participants.

We’ll be updating our review with a score in light of this patch over the next couple of days when we have tested it all out. In the meantime let us know what you think of this whole debacle with a comment below.