Category: Nintendo News

Though the Castlevania series has had a rather inconsistent and confusing run over the years, the one thing tying it all together is the famed Belmont clan, with a member of the family showing up in just about every game released in the series so far. That age-old battle between the forces of good and evil has spawned all sorts of stories, but what if the Belmont clan wasn’t actually very good at the whole evil-punching thing? You’d probably end up with something approximating Rogue Legacy, a humorous and wonderfully-designed roguelike RPG following the clumsy efforts of a family attempting to conquer a castle.

The story of Rogue Legacy is a simple one which tracks the adventures of a long line of knights as each generation attempts to successfully eradicate the evils that live within the walls of the ever-changing Castle Hamson. As far as plot goes, it’s about as basic as things get, but little bits of lore are peppered in here and there through collectable journal entries that chronicle the journey of a fellow knight through the castle. Both from these journal entries and the plentiful flavour text that adorns item and stat descriptions, it’s clear that the writing is quite polished and humorous, setting an enjoyable and goofy tone that luckily doesn’t take itself too seriously.

Rogue Legacy is a roguelike action platformer through and through, leaning hard into the difficulty that the genre is famed for while interspersing strong RPG elements that support an infuriatingly addictive feedback loop. A run starts off with you selecting one of three children, each of which is of a random class and has certain ‘traits’ that either help or hinder them, usually in humorous ways. For example, a character with C.I.P. (congenital insensitivity to pain) doesn’t have a visible health bar because they don’t know how injured they are, while a character with dementia occasionally sees monsters that don’t exist. Traits, for the most part, feel well balanced in how they mix up the experience without breaking it outright, most importantly making each run feel that little bit more unique.

Classes are similarly varied, with each one focusing on a different kind of playstyle that highlights the engaging combat in unique ways. The Lich, for example, starts out with a paltry amount of health, but each kill raises the character’s maximum health cap. The Archmage has extremely strong magic capabilities, but low health and a weak melee attack. Considering that you’re typically not given much choice over which class to pick – two of your three child picks can often be of the same class – you’ll be putting in plenty of time trying out each one, neatly forcing you to try out all classes and learn to adapt strategies to the strengths and weaknesses of each one.

Once you get into the castle, the goal is simply to make it as far as possible before dying, which you will do plenty of times. There are four areas to traverse, each possessing a boss fight required to unlock the final boss, and though a player could theoretically traverse an entire given map in about forty minutes, the odds are much better that you’ll make it about five minutes before falling to a deviously-placed spike trap or a horde of enemies. Rogue Legacy is a hard game; it’s practically a given that you’re going to lose some (or, y’know, a lot) of health in every room, and once your character goes down, they’re dead forever and the cycle repeats with you choosing from another three children.

Rogue Legacy would be a good enough game if this were all there was to the gameplay loop, but it’s strongly enhanced by the underlying RPG structure that ensures not every run has to be in vain. When a character dies, all the gold they collected can be spent back at the family manor, where various stats like health, armour and critical hit rates can be boosted, or where new classes or class upgrades can be unlocked. After leaving the manor, you can also talk to a blacksmith, who forges new swords and armour pieces, and an enchantress, who enchants your gear with runes. Getting access to new equipment and new runes isn’t a simple matter of paying up, however; you have to unlock them first by finding them in treasure chests or clearing special challenge rooms scattered throughout the castle. It all seems pretty straightforward, but Rogue Legacy is hiding a nasty secret when you walk up with a new character, ready to re-enter the castle.

Charon, the ferryman of the dead, waits at the castle gate, and he cleans out any money left over from your last run. By throwing this spanner in the works, Rogue Legacy completely obliterates any hope of saving up money over several consecutive runs; you either spend it all before going back in or lose whatever you didn’t spend. Some may decry this as being unfair, but it smartly forces the player to diversify the stats that they invest their precious gold into; sometimes you don’t have nearly enough to buy that class upgrade you wanted, so you invest it into the slightly cheaper mana upgrade to ensure that Charon doesn’t get much of a cut.

Progression through the castle is more or less gated by this RPG system, with each area containing enemies and traps that deal and receive damage at progressively higher levels. Much like in the Dark Souls series, one could conceivably conquer the later areas right from the off, but it’s a much better decision to stick to the places you can manage until your stats have reached an acceptable level to challenge the horrors that lie ahead. Regardless of where you are in the game, Rogue Legacy is an absolute joy to play, with tight controls and solid moment-to-moment action. Just about every room contains a clever mixture of traps and enemies that are sure to keep you on your toes, dodging and weaving between fireballs, spikes, and spears in a desperate struggle for survival. Even in easier areas, it’s not all too difficult to be overwhelmed by the obstacles facing you, and later areas introduce new enemy and trap types to keep you guessing as you progress further. Combat is quick and clean, with your basic sword attack and optional projectile attack giving you everything you need to dispatch of threats efficiently, and the controls are delightfully responsive.

What holds this all together and makes Rogue Legacy such a wonderfully addictive experience is how each run simultaneously manages to feel unique, yet part of a natural progression of what came before. Unless you pay a handsome chunk of change to a certain merchant, the castle is completely different every time, and coupling that with the wild variance in the child that you choose to control for the current run, it can feel like a distinct game in some ways. Even so, the upgrades and bonuses that you acquire over successive runs also contribute to a growing and rewarding sense of empowerment; an area that once gave you a lot of grief early in the game may be a breeze to run through now regardless of what class you’re running.

Rogue Legacy very much feels like what would come to mind if someone were to ask you to picture a “cute Castlevania”; it integrates zombies, skeletons, and other horror-themed monsters, but all of it is depicted in a bright, somewhat cheery fashion that echoes the tongue-in-cheek tone of the writing. Environments are admittedly a little bland, but each area manages to look unique by the use of different colour palettes and room designs; the forest certainly feels distinct from the tower, even if there aren’t many defining environmental hazards in either. Each area also has its own theme, and an occasionally accessible jukebox gives you the option to listen to many more music tracks, but we found the soundtrack to be a little bland after dozens of repeated runs exposing us to the same music. It’s a relatively minor issue for most, but some may find the repetitive music to be grating over time.

Conclusion

Rogue Legacy is a simple take on the tried-and-true roguelike formula, but it executes what it sets out to do exceptionally well, making for an endlessly replayable and enjoyable action adventure that no fan of the genre will want to miss out on. A high difficulty level, funny writing, tight controls and rewarding RPG mechanics make this one an effortless recommendation; the design of the game makes it easy to play in short bursts or long sessions, which means it’s a great fit for the Switch. If you enjoyed Dead Cells, Castlevania, or any 2D sidescroller in that style, you’re almost certain to have a blast with this one.

Over the years, Nickelodeon has amassed quite a varied and deep stable of entertaining cartoon franchises, with characters like Spongebob Squarepants and Aang becoming cultural icons that are recognized the world over. It stands to reason, then, that the company could produce a solid kart racer in the vein of Mario Kart; there’s more than enough characters and locales to draw from, and if it were done right, the nostalgia alone could cause millennials to flock to the game in droves. Nickelodeon Kart Racers, unfortunately, doesn’t quite deliver on that tremendous potential, and instead comes off as an inoffensive but utterly forgettable title that doesn’t even come close to stepping out of Mario Kart’s shadow.

Right from the off, it’s evident that you’re not nearly getting the experience you’d hope for when you see the character select screen, which contains a paltry sum of twelve characters from a total of four franchises: Spongebob, Hey Arnold, Rugrats, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Fairly Oddparents? Jimmy Neutron? Invader Zim? Avatar? They’re all nowhere to be found. Indeed, given the enormous number of popular franchises that Nickelodeon could draw from, the offering here is unacceptably lazy; Nickelodeon Kart Racers has a roster that just barely meets minimum standards, and that’s a sentiment that’s unfortunately carried throughout the rest of the game.

Once you hit the track, Nickelodeon Kart Racers essentially becomes a looser and more generic version of Mario Kart 8 Deluxe; its mechanics are decent, but there are very few ideas here that aren’t derived from better games. Each track consists of a mixture of land, air, and sea portions that see your kart transforming accordingly, and lines of item boxes are generously thrown around the tracks to offer racers an edge in battle. These items are directly aped from Mario Kart in their usage, such as an acorn in place of a Bob-omb, a bottle of bubble soap instead of a banana peel, or a spatula instead of a blue shell, and though disappointingly derivative, items are still a fun way of keeping a race interesting and regularly shaking up the status quo.

This being a Nickelodeon title, it wouldn’t be the same without the iconic green slime, and Bamtang Games has chosen to incorporate it here by implementing an interesting F-Zero-like boost system. Puddles and lakes of slime are present on every track, and driving through them will slowly fill up a segmented gauge at the top of the screen which represents your boost power. Every time you activate a boost it consumes one cell of the gauge, but if you wait for more cells to fill, the resulting speed boost will be more powerful and last longer. It’s a fun way to add some strategy to the experience on top of item usage and though this boost system doesn’t entirely redeem the ho-hum gameplay, it certainly does make it more enjoyable.

Along with the copious item boxes, every track is littered with coins to collect as you drive, and these can then be spent on kart parts in an in-game shop to better tune your ride. Though it’s yet another idea that’s lifted wholesale from Mario Kart, this does help to add some replayability to the experience, encouraging players to experiment with different builds and keep grinding out races to collect more coins. It must be said that there doesn’t seem to be much of a difference in swapping out kart parts – the gameplay feels very much the same regardless of what parts you’ve installed – but those who consider themselves to be completionists will be satisfied at the extra content represented here.

There’s a total of twenty-four tracks on offer, and these can be experienced in either themed Grand Prix cups or individually via free race. Track designs are generally quite homogenous from a gameplay standpoint, lacking the stage hazards and set pieces that one would expect, although their overall look and feel is surprisingly faithful to the source material. Locations like Glove World and Arnold’s school are rife with plenty of references and little details that call back to the franchises they’re based on, showing a level of passion and attention to detail that feels oddly inconsistent with the rest of the game. Once again, the low amount of franchise representation is felt all too much here, but what’s present is sure to satisfy fans of Nickelodeon.

With that being said, Nickelodeon Kart Racers is just as disappointing in its presentation as it is with its gameplay; the graphics look like they were pulled from a lazily-upscaled GameCube game, and there’s a general air of artificial lifelessness that makes the whole experience mildly uncomfortable. Character models are expressive, but they fall firmly into ‘uncanny valley’ territory; animations are stiff and robotic, and most expressions feel insincere and kind of creepy. This is exacerbated by how Spongebob’s iconic laugh and Michaelangelo’s banter are nowhere to be found here; every character is completely silent throughout the entire race, making for an oddly quiet and flat experience.

Similarly, the soundtrack is extremely disappointing; instead of remixes of tracks from the shows being represented here, you’re treated to a painfully forgettable collection of MIDI tracks that sound like placeholder music that never got replaced. One could easily transplant this music into just about any kid-friendly mobile game and it wouldn’t feel out of place, making it feel like yet another missed opportunity. There’s absolutely no character to this music at all, it’s annoying, repetitive and soulless, and combining that with the complete lack of voice acting makes for an experience that feels raw and incomplete.

It’s also worth mentioning that Nickelodeon Kart Racers runs into some egregious performance issues, and these are magnified further by the addition of other players or the usage of portable mode. Pop-in is terrible and actively hindered our enjoyment, such as instances like when Squidward frantically oscillated between materializing and disappearing from his doorstep, or when an upcoming hazard on the track turned invisible and cost us a race. The framerate runs at an uncapped 30 FPS, too, but it usually hovers somewhere around the 20 FPS mark, especially when multiple racers pour into a turn or you make the mistake of trying to play this on the go. Given the simple graphics being displayed, such performance issues make for a dark stain on an already iffy game experience.

Conclusion

There are far worse games out there than Nickelodeon Kart Racers, but there are far better ones as well. Given the tremendous opportunity represented by this IP, it’s hard not to be disappointed by the state of Nickelodeon Kart Racers; with more attention to quality and another year of development, this could’ve possibly been a compelling alternative to Mario Kart. Unfortunately, Nickelodeon Kart Racers is simply not good; derivative mechanics, a pathetic character roster and awful performance make this a bargain bin experience that you’ll be glad you missed. If you absolutely have to play a racing game with Nickelodeon characters, then by all means, go ahead, but we’d highly recommend you take a pass on this sorry effort.