Category: Nintendo News

For years, it seemed the only format worthy of HBO’s global TV mega-hit was a consequence-driven point-and-click adventure from Telltale Games. That prayer to the Seven was finally answered in 2014, but a second season was eventually cancelled amid internal collapse and we were soon left with nothing more than cheap mobile tie-ins and a terrible action-RPG that no one seems to remember exists. Doesn’t the biggest TV show in the world deserve better gaming representation?

Well, yes it does, and indie studio Nerial just happens to have just the game worthy of inheriting the digital Iron Throne. Enter Reigns: Game of Thrones, a card-swapping narrative adventure full of twists, turns, wildfire, dragons, betrayals and rains all the way from Castamere. By taking the simple binary choice system and randomised storylines of the original Reigns and its brilliant sequel, Reigns: Her Majesty (which were previously bundled together on Switch in Reigns: Kings & Queens) and splicing it with the dark fantasy world of George R.R. Martin’s literary saga, you’re left with something so perfectly suited it’s practically offensive.

For those who haven’t played the series before, Reigns: Game of Thrones is the bastard child of Tinder and a choose-your-own-adventure book. Told through the visions of red priestess Melisandre, you begin your reign in the shoes of stormborn dragon mama Daenerys Targaryen as she claims the Iron Throne. You’ll also unlock eight other major characters from the saga as you meet certain objectives generated at the start of each run. While the game doesn’t drop you into a specific era of the books or show, it does use events from the latter seasons as narrative anchor points so certain story beats mentioned should be considered highly spoilerific for those who haven’t watched season seven.

So you begin each run already in possession of the crown, but keeping it on your head (and your head upon your shoulders) is another matter entirely. What lies ahead is the rigmarole of royal diplomacy (receiving ambassadors and establishing treaties), the cloak-and-dagger game of inter-house politics (using the Iron Bank to cut off credit to your enemies and exploiting Varys’ little birds to seek powerful secrets), the protection of your borders (dealing with the always rowdy Iron Islands and keeping the troublesome Dornish at arms length), the waging of war (leading armies into battle and orchestrating them from afar) and so much more. Cersei wasn’t kidding when she explained the rules of the titular game. And dying is often far more common an outcome than victory…

Each action is presented as a card. You can either swipe left to deny or right to agree with certain options. There’s no right or wrong option here, and each new binary choice is often based upon the ones you’ve made previously. You might decide to decline the advances of one of the Sand Snakes, but by doing so force her to return home embittered, planting the seeds for a future attack. You might choose to spend coin rebuilding the Great Sept, but run out of funds later down the line when you need to properly arm your military. Tactics play a vital role, but chance and luck are also along for the ride.

Each character begins with their own specific conditions or narrative backstory (Tyrion’s history as Master of Coin sometimes affords him a stronger relationship with the Iron Bank, and thus a much healthier set of coffers), while Jon Snow and Sansa will respectively begin with a greater set of alliances among those in the North. On top of this, you’ll need to balance four metres at all times – military power, religious purity, popularity among the people and royal wealth. Each decision will increase or decrease each one, and should a single metre be completely drained, a grisly end is usually not far behind.

Sometimes, your demise will come about because of a particular decision you made previously. Heading on a ship to Dorne to settle a potential war might see your monarch disappear on the journey, never to be seen again. You might arrive in the north to aid your allies in Winterfell, only to be slain and resurrected as a wight. You might demote a certain lord and suddenly find yourself being filled with blades in a bloody bout of political restructuring. Death is a constant companion, always lurking out of sight, but always ready to embrace you. In that regard, Reigns: Game of Thrones is less about winning and more about surviving enough moons to die with pride.

As as the case with previous versions of Reigns, the game’s biggest weakness is its longevity; while there are a dizzying number of potential routes through the story, after a few days of solid play you’ll have exhausted (almost) all of them. This was less of an issue on smartphones, where you’d play in short bursts, but on Switch, the game’s lack of staying power is more cruelly exposed. Having said that, it’s so well-written and downright unpredictable that you’ll readily forgive this shortcoming.

Conclusion

As an officially licensed game – complete with character likenesses in Reigns’ angular portrait format and Ramin Djawadi’s instantly recognisable score – Reigns: Game of Thrones is about as close as you’ll come to living the day-to-day life of a Westeros monarch, short of visiting the Seven Kingdoms for real. By bringing in key characters and events from the books and show, you’re given enough authenticity that exploring storylines only ever teased in the source material (such as seeing Jamie on the throne or a more compassionate version of Cersei) feel just as meaningful.

The critically acclaimed Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice won a whole host of awards back in 2017 on PS4 and PC, so hearing that the game was coming to Switch sent ripples of excitement through the NL office. Ninja Theory, the studio behind Heavenly Sword, Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and DmC (the 2013 Devil May Cry reboot) specialises in ‘independent AAA’ games – at least it did until Microsoft acquired the studio last year – and Hellblade’s dark, psychological brand of action-adventure looked like an ambitious project for a Switch port. With Microsoft getting particularly cosy with Nintendo of late, it’s no surprise that this version of Hellblade continued production unabated, but can it really hold a candle to the original game?

From the first moment you boot it up on the handheld, it’s hard to understand just how QLOC, the company trusted to bring the game to Switch, has managed it. The static close-up of Senua’s face on the title screen sets the tone to follow, as do the ambient screams and ominous chords. Simply put, Hellblade looks stunning on Nintendo’s console. QLOC has done sterling work.

Weighing in at a hefty 18.2GB, texture quality is generally much better than we imagined it could be. Senua herself looks fantastic – the fur ‘ruff’ she wears looks, well, it looks like fur! Various effects are employed to reflect her fractured perception and they, coupled with depth-of-field effects, arguably help to disguise some of the changes to this version of the game, but Hellblade really stands up visually on the Switch.

It’s not perfect, of course and eagle-eyed fans will note the concessions QLOC has made; although it runs at a relatively smooth 30 frames-per-second, minor hiccoughs occur as you move between some areas, and you’ll notice the odd bit of texture pop-in or shadows loading as you enter an enclosure. Senua’s hair clips into her back sometimes, and dynamic resolution appears to be employed to keep things running smoothly; handheld mode is a touch blurrier, although the smaller screen helps. Digital Foundry’s customary analysis will be fascinating, but a cursory comparison via YouTube reveals that lighting and foliage quality have been reduced, too.

However, playing Hellblade in this way – analysing framerates and foliage – is to completely miss the point when the Switch version more than hits the minimum fidelity required to tell its story with aplomb. It’s a dark, intellectual combat-horror game and QLOC’s port ensnares the player in its world very effectively. Reviewing the game forces us to draw direct comparisons with existing versions and adopt an unnatural approach. The average player wouldn’t – and shouldn’t – have PS4 gameplay videos running side-by-side for comparison’s sake and, to be frank, we were sorry we had to disturb our time with Senua to do so, but it’s a necessary evil for the review; you can enjoy the journey uninterrupted.

The game is a narrative triumph as well as a technical one. It’s won umpteen awards in various categories and garnered particular praise for its depiction of a protagonist with psychosis and mental instability. Drawn from Norse mythology, Senua’s journey to Helheim to avenge her lover has her confronting surreal enemies and constantly questioning what’s real or imagined. Although it does involve some chunky, satisfying swordplay, it’s a disquieting, exploratory experience – certainly not something to embark on lightly or if you’re simply after some relaxing, free-flowing video game violence. You’re given time to ruminate and the developers take pleasure in unsettling you with ethereal voices and disturbing noises.

It’s a cerebral game with a slow, considered pace. By ‘cerebral’, we don’t mean you’ll be solving intricate puzzles, although you’ll encounter some conundrums which usually involve finding environmental features to match runes that unlock gates. The game uses excellent audio design to block you in, to ‘cage’ you with Senua’s conflicting thoughts. The environment is wonderfully crunchy and squelchy by turn, but voices occupy the stereo sound channels in a very intimate way, even when you’re playing on the TV (binaural sound though headphones enhances the effect even further). The sound is beautifully crisp and close, providing an intimacy that’s unsettling and comforting in equal measure.

The motion capture used to bring Senua to life is a cut above the average fare, and the attention to detail that Ninja Theory put into her character model really helps build a relationship between you and protagonist as she deals with the internal mental conflict. As well as mocking and casting doubt on her actions, the voices also coach you and the game is pleasantly devoid of an explicit tutorial. From a gameplay perspective this is refreshing, although it did mean we missed a couple of features until later on. Hitting ‘ZR’ outside of combat zooms in and focuses Senua’s attention on the various sigils and environmental features she comes across, but in combat it also activates a ‘witchtime’-style slowdown mode, although we went through the first few hours (the game’s only around 8 hours long) without knowing it was there.

With every failure and death a creeping pestilence called ‘dark rot’ worms its way further up Senua’s arm; you’re threatened with having to restart your game completely if it reaches your head. There are echoes of From Software’s Dark Souls in both this and the combat, although it’s Dark Souls by way of Resident Evil 4 – everything feels very tank-like and cinematic with its over-the-shoulder perspective.

Senua draws her sword automatically when an enemy materialises. Dodge is on ‘B’ with a melee attack on ‘A’ and fast and heavy sword strikes on ‘Y’ and ‘X’ respectively. You can block with ‘R’, although we rarely used it. Motion controls are included in the Switch version, although again, we played for several hours without realising. Holding in ‘ZR’ to focus activates the gyrometer allowing you to look around using the Joy-Con. It works well if you’re into that sort of thing and is entirely unobtrusive if you’re not.

Despite familiar echoes and mechanical touchstones from other games, Hellblade’s psychological bent and the constant voices in Senua’s (and therefore your) head give it an identity very much of its own. Again, though, as game enthusiasts it’s difficult to separate our admiration of the technical aspects from the game itself. On one hand it’s a shame to focus on the tech behind the game when the narrative is equally remarkable, but it’s continually astonishing to see what the Switch can do in the right hands. We’ve seen incredible feats already from the likes of Panic Button, with DOOM and Wolfenstein II being the go-to examples of ‘miracle’ ports, but those games are always couched in qualifications. They’ve been squeezed onto Nintendo’s handheld hybrid against all odds – hugely impressive games considering the hardware limitations.

Hellblade certainly joins their ranks, but arguably goes a step further thanks to its slower pace and profound narrative. Caveats still exist, of course, but they aren’t so nakedly apparent. This feels like an uncompromised vision – a fully realised and rounded psychological tale that just happens to be running on the Switch’s mobile chipset. It’s excellent.

Conclusion

To have Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice on Switch in this form is a blessing that you shouldn’t miss out on. The game itself is a psychological sensory experience that we thoroughly recommend, but the fact that it’s been translated to Switch in such a complete fashion is the true surprise here. It doesn’t feel like a downgrade at all – it stands proudly alongside the other ‘miracle’ ports on the system, arguably surpassing them in some ways. It’s a remarkable effort and a challenge to other developers who insist Switch couldn’t handle their games. Anything’s possible, it seems, and we take our hats off to QLOC – bravo.