Category: Nintendo News

There are lots of one-on-one fighters on Switch, many of which have been released as part of HAMSTER’s ACA Neo Geo series. The Last Blade 2 is another one, giving you a selection of fighters to pick from as you engage in a series of best of three-round fights en route to a showdown with an overpowered final big bad. It may not be filling a gap in the marketplace (and the excellent first game is already available on the eShop), but it shouldn’t be dismissed as it does said fighting very well indeed.

The 12 playable characters from the first game have made it across although the twin-blade wielding Shikyoh has died and returned as the twin-blade wielding zombie Mukuro. Previous end bad guy Kagami is now selectable and there are also three newcomers. As before, the game uses two strengths of weapon attack – a kick button and a repel one – which, with careful timing, can be used to deflect your opponent’s attack and hopefully launch a counteroffensive.

There’s good variety amongst the fighters, with the range of blades (small and large), clubs and other weapons giving you different options to try out, whilst Lee mainly favours his fists and feet, occasionally calling on a flaming fan blade. The two fighting styles (Power and Speed) return giving you something else to consider after choosing your fighter.

The Power mode is a good way to break through your opponent’s defensives and allows for extra powerful Super Desperation moves should the power gauge be filled. Regular desperation moves are also available with this mode as well as in the Speed one. Speed allows for easier combos as well as special Speed Combos should the power gauge be full. This game also introduces a third ‘Ultimate’ fighting style (hidden but detailed in the electronic manual) that combines the other two, but at the cost of greatly reduced defensive capabilities. It can lead to swift victory, but also humiliating defeat.

Released eight years after the Neo Geo hardware debuted, SNK knew how to get the best out of the system at this point and so The Last Blade 2 impresses visually, improving on an already stunning first game. Adopting an animated look, the character designs are good, but the fluid animation really helps immerse you in the fights as characters twist around and leap across the screen finding new ways to smack each other about. The various character yells, grunts and different weapon clash and impact noises also help to sell the experience.

There’s a good selection of locations fought on from countrysides to villages and battlefields and burning buildings. There’s lots of detail in the surroundings and good effects like a heat shimmer, scenery reflected in shallow water you are fighting in, grass swaying in the breeze and birds and insects in the air. Subtle camera zooms during fights work well and the music also impresses. There’s a good mix of styles ranging from waltz-like to sombre and adventurous, whilst other times there’s no music at all and the backing track is simply the local wildlife or rushing water.

Playing through the game is a joy as, like its predecessor, there are a number of ways in which fights can play out. You may find yourself exchanging heavy strikes in close-combat, dashing to get the odd move in, keeping the opponent at bay with projectiles or spying an opportunity for a devastating combo attack. Or something else entirely. Your dashing attacks as well as knowing when to block or go for a repel lead to a number of options during fights and even rounds against the same opponent can offer up a different challenge.

If there’s one downside to the game, it’s the lack of balance. The first game balanced the line-up well, but here tweaks and changes have thrown things off. Liked playing as Yuki in the first game? Well, expect to lose a lot more this time around. Of course, this is a bigger problem in two-player matches as in single player you can just enjoy the challenge of battling towards your ending with a weaker character such as Okina. You could also use a stronger character such as Zantetsu as you get to know the game or if you just feel like powering through.

New final boss Kouryu has some very powerful moves that can quickly end your challenge, but generally, the game is quite fair on its default difficulty. As always with these releases there are options for things like button remapping and adding scanlines to the image. The number of rounds can be adjusted, allowing for single round fights or increasing to best of five affairs. The speed the timer counts down can also be adjusted and ‘brutal depictions’ can be turned off if you’d like less violence; there are blood spurts in the game and final blows can be fatal.

HAMSTER’s usual Hi Score and Caravan modes are here, giving you one credit and five minutes respectively to score as highly as possible to try and move up the online leaderboards. Seeking to improve your point scoring doesn’t have quite the same appeal as just winning more fights, so there’s more replayability from the two-player mode; the second player is able to buy into the regular arcade mode at any time to challenge you.

There are a few secrets on the character select screen (again listed in the electronic manual), the most fun of which is playing as Hagure. Usually, a spirit that appears during Akari’s battles, here Hagure takes on the form of your opponent, turning each fight of your playthrough into a mirror match. There’s also a hidden Time Attack mode. This one isn’t mentioned in the electronic manual. Simply hold all four attack buttons and pressing Start (‘R’ on Switch) and you will gain you access to it. Here you simply defeat as many opponents as possible before the 90-second timer reaches zero.

Conclusion

Like most fighters in the ACA Neo Geo range, there isn’t much appeal in the Hi Score or Caravan modes, but that doesn’t really matter when the regular game is so enjoyable. Like its predecessor, The Last Blade 2 seemingly simple combat system has a lot of depth allowing for plenty of options in fights with the good selection of fighters and different fighting modes. This game adds a third fighting mode and has some extra characters compared to the first game. Where that first game has the edge, however, is in the fighter balancing. If you’d only like one Last Blade title on your Switch it’s a choice between fair fights or more fighting options, but really both Last Blade titles offer varied, enjoyable, engrossing fighting action with superb audio-visual presentation.

Runbow turned out to be something of a cult classic when it launched on Wii U back in 2015. Mixing a whole lot of colour, chaos, party-style fun, a generous amount of solo player content, and even a selection of favourite Nindie characters, the game was adored by those who played it and for good reason – it was brilliant. So is it still worth buying now that it’s made the jump to Switch? Of course, it is.

The premise of the game is simple, but it’s also one that’ll have you shouting out a whole manner of profanities that you never knew even existed. Your goal is to simply run across floors and platforms, safely making your way to an endpoint or goal of some sort, but this is made devilishly tricky by the game’s colour system. The background regularly cycles through different colours, and all platforms that match this colour will disappear until it changes again. It’s hard enough landing on every platform as it is, but now you have to keep an eye on the ever-changing scenery and plan your route ahead of time.

There are several different modes and ways to play Runbow, including crazy multiplayer options that support up to nine players, but let’s start off with the single-player stuff. For a game that, on the surface at least, looks like it’s clearly aimed at the multiplayer party audience, the single-player modes are full of content and are really good fun to boot.

The adventure mode is perhaps the best place to start, with a selection of levels available that task you with reaching the goal, defeating a certain number of enemies using basic combat controls, or collecting a number of objects. You’re assessed on your completion times and unlock more levels as you go, aiming to earn the maximum three medals for each stage you attempt. Some levels are tricky, but you should be able to reach the end with persistence and it’s a really enjoyable experience while it lasts.

There’s also a Bowhemoth mode – although we’d suggest leaving this until you feel incredibly confident in your Runbow skills. This mode challenges you with multiple rooms of particularly fiddly platforming and colour schemes, and in a terrifying twist, it doesn’t ever let you save your progress; if you need a break or quit out of frustration, you’ll be thrown right back to the start the next time you load it up. It’s not for the faint of heart, but the rewarding feeling of beating it is naturally one of great jubilation and pride.

While the gameplay itself is great, it’s actually perhaps the game’s personality that really shines through here. Everything is presented with an incredibly high level of polish, with sleek menus, a fantastic, scarily catchy soundtrack, and an always-beautiful display across all gameplay modes – and the game even acts like it has a mind of its own. When you inevitably fall to your doom, the quick respawn loading screen will taunt you with messages like, “Imagine winning,” and, “Well that was anti-climactic,” which often had us chuckling away even as we failed.

The multiplayer options are split into ‘Run’, ‘Arena’, and ‘King of the Hill’, all offering slight variances on the standard gameplay. Run has you running from a starting point to a goal, Arena encourages players to punch each other around in the hopes of being the last one standing, and King of the Hill makes players fight over one particular spot on the map, aiming to take command there for a set amount of time.

In local multiplayer, these modes all support up to eight players, and this extends to nine if you play online. As you can probably imagine, the more players you have, the more hectic things get; having nine of you sprinting around, desperately trying to avoid being punched while monitoring the colours of platforms is arguably even more hectic than a full eight-player game of Super Smash Bros. – and that’s saying something!

The multiplayer side to the game is undoubtedly fun, but there are a few things that left us a little underwhelmed at times. Firstly, there’s no option to add in AI characters, so if you can only gather three people to play that’s all you’ll ever be able to experience without joining unpredictable online players (the online Runbow scene on Wii U often saw players drop out if they weren’t winning). Also, it won’t take long until you find yourself replaying all the same stages, and knowing the exact layout of a run takes something away from the madness.

These are relatively little niggles in what is otherwise a sublime experience, but they’re worth noting for those of you who will primarily play this alone or with just a couple of friends. Unfortunately, due to the fact that it relied so heavily on the Wii U’s GamePad, the ‘ColourMaster’ mode is also missing from this edition. This mode was a Nintendo Land-like affair where the GamePad player caused chaos for those playing with Wii Remotes and it’s sad to see it go.

Returning to Runbow’s strong points, though, we couldn’t help but mention the awesome character roster and unlockables. As well as the game’s own mascots, you can choose from a cast of Nindie heroes including Shovel Knight, Rusty from SteamWorld Dig, Juan and Tostada from Guacamelee!, Max from Mutant Mudds, Commander Video from Bit.Trip Runner, Shantae from Shantae: Half-Genie Hero and more, and unlocking all of these is a joy. The unlock requirements are visible from a ‘Gallery’ option on the main menu, but you never know who you’ll unlock for your hard work. The challenges are good fun to complete, and the whole process acts like a Nindie version of early Smash Bros. games.

Conclusion

Runbow is a great example of a party game that can cater to solo and multiplayer preferences alike, and almost certainly deserves a cheeky purchase on Switch. The gameplay is great fun, the presentation is to die for, and unlocking Nindie heroes through a really nicely put together adventure mode is the icing on the cake. We felt there was a little left to be desired with some elements of the multiplayer modes, and this might just make some think a little harder before jumping in, but we absolutely recommend giving this one a go if you’re interested regardless.