Category: Nintendo News

Breaking away from its custom of pumping out pinball titles at an impressive rate, Zen Studios has decided to bring Robot Roller-Derby Disco Dodgeball back to life but with a much snappier name. The first iteration saw release on PC three years ago and now Switch owners can join in with minimal differences from the PC counterpart.

Disco Dodgeball – REMIX is a first-person competitive sports game that relies primarily on online play. Up to eight players battle it out in TRON-style arenas with 21 gameplay modes to choose from including classic Dodgeball, Grand Prix (yes, you read that correctly) and our personal favourite, Elimination. We rally up some of our gaming buddies to take the majority of the modes for a spin, and although there’s plenty to choose from, only a handful manage to hold our interest.

Rushing to grab one of the randomly generated balls that crop up in each of the ten or so arenas and lobbing them at the opposing players is a different and entertaining way to play, but once the penny drops and the art is mastered, trying to figure out what you’re meant to be doing (and when) starts to become increasingly frustrating. One mode has us all scrambling to the elusive golden ball to then throw it at one of four panels marked with a big X that dangle from the middle of the ceiling. Simple on paper, but when we find that none of us is scoring any points because we need to hit the blank side of the panel, it becomes a frustrating face-to-palm situation.

Sadly, many of the design decisions have us scratching our heads in confusion, most notably when it comes to the matchmaking facilities. Granted, the developer has created a seamless lobby that allows for drop-in/drop-out gameplay, but hosting a private room isn’t straightforward and the only option is to piggy-back and invite fellow Switch players until everyone is present. Hosting a dedicated Discord voice comms room makes things more accessible, functional and fun albeit still confusing in many of the modes.

If you’re a fan of customisation then you’re in luck as the game offers it in droves. Completing single-player and online challenges – such as levelling up or performing a set amount of special moves – and the game dishes out nuts, bolts and other mechanical bits-and-bobs. Grabbing a certain amount of parts sees us crafting all sorts of items to pimp our bot out with. From changing the wheels to having the option to plonk a set of antlers on the dodgeball-wielding robot, having a funny-looking bot whizzing around the arenas doesn’t provide too much incentive to grind.

There’s single-player content and while there’s an Arcade, Training and a Challenges mode to play, all of these don’t bring much in the way of incentive to come back and revisit once a few minutes have been spent exploring them. Still, a leaderboard for every mode (including the solo content) is readily accessible and is sure to attract those wanting to stay on top and screenshot them holding first place for their friends to see. There’s also a split-screen option for couch multiplayer for those wanting to break away from the online side of things. Again, it works fine but there isn’t enough there to draw the player back in.

Disco Dodgeball Remix successfully ticks some boxes. Smooth performing multiplayer? Tick. Customisation? Tick. Effective power-ups? Kind of tick. But apart from having a mediocre online offering that provides a light amount of entertainment when there’s a group of mates playing in a chat room for company, there isn’t much else to experience.

Conclusion

The bright, flashing lights – and admittedly catchy thumping club music – coupled with an eye-watering amount of modes and game/bot customisation isn’t quite enough to dress up what essentially feels like a promising idea that’s vastly undercooked. A little more time in the oven – and with a more appetising and interesting main course – and Disco Dodgeball could have been a much stronger option on the small, but rapidly growing menu of online-focused games for Switch.

Bestowed with a disquieting atmosphere and visual imagination, Little Nightmares makes a terrific first impression. A side-on platform-puzzler in the vein of Playdead’s exceptional Limbo and Inside – with a similarly dark palette – the game casts the player as Six, a nine-year-old girl who must navigate her way from the depths of a titanic ship called The Maw to escape onto the ocean waves. But the more time you spend with Six, guiding her through the clanking and groaning vessel, the more Little Nightmares reveals its shortcomings.

Swedish studio Tarsier first revealed Little Nightmares in 2014 as a game called Hunger, and Six is indeed cursed with a raging appetite which sees her take some unexpected character turns. Suffice to say that she is no sweet summer child, at times exhibiting qualities more in keeping with the game’s array of grotesque antagonists. An empathetic, protective connection with Little Nightmare’s protagonist is no guarantee, then, which strips the game’s scenes of life-or-death hide and seek – and desperate sprints to evade the clutches of lanky armed assailants – of the tension they should be positively dripping with.

This leads to the player caring less about Six’s safety than they might’ve done, had she not been partial to the occasional wicked act. And that, combined with the regular deaths you’ll encounter (another element borrowed from Playdead’s copybook), turns the trial-and-error gameplay into something where the stakes don’t feel especially raised.

If Six gets fried, or crushed, or caught, that’s fine – you simply reload the checkpoint, having learned from your mistakes. But here’s where the greatest obstacle you’ll face in finishing the game raises its head. Forget the traps and the terrors of the Maw – it’s the painfully long loading times between deaths that’ll have you hitting the Switch home button for something less frustrating.

If the game snapped you right back to the last checkpoint a few seconds after coming a cropper, Little Nightmares would be much easier to recommend. But with death occurring so regularly – not just because of the things that are actively out to get you, but also some spongey controls, unclear environments and ropey collision detection that sees Six stick herself to walls or stumble on the floorboards when you least need her to – these lengthy waits to get back to the Maw become bothersome in the extreme.

Checkpointing itself is fairly generous, with usually only a handful of potential pitfalls between one respawn area and the next, but repeating the same short sequences several times robs them of their potency, and the Maw’s occupants quickly lose their fear factor.

Which is a true shame, as the story of Little Nightmares – fleshed out as it is, wonderfully, by the DLC included in the Switch’s Complete Edition port – is a treat of gruesome titillation and macabre mystery. It’s not just Six who isn’t all she seems; other characters that she encounters – both playable (in the DLC) and not – have murky backgrounds that can be exposed through both their actions and by studying the environments they inhabit.

All of those Nomes that run from Six as she sneaks around the ship? Oh, they have their reasons for being afraid of her, and that shocking reveal is Little Nightmare’s narrative highlight, bar none. Be sure to pay attention to their shadows, too.

And you’ll want to look for those when the Switch is docked, as Little Nightmares is crisp and clear on the TV, its shadows working more as mood setters than making the screen hard to read. Played handheld, though, a game this dimly lit can’t not suffer from reflection interference, and seeing your own face peering back at you from behind Six’s misadventures doesn’t half compromise the experience.

If you are intending to play Little Nightmares undocked, then, ensure you’re someplace dark enough to avoid that. The visuals are a little fuzzier when in handheld mode, but with the stylised look Tarsier has realised here – not to mention the slow gameplay – Little Nightmares doesn’t suffer significantly for the minor dip in clarity.

The DLC, in which you play as another runaway kid entirely, is mechanically identical to the main game, and its three instalments add up to about three hours of bonus material – which is welcomed in a value-for-money capacity, as Six’s story is beatable in just over four hours, unless those loading screens grind you down first. Oh, and if you’ve got a Pac-Man amiibo lying about the house, you might want to dig out and dust it off for this one.

The DLC features one of the game’s very best monsters, too, an aquatic nasty that’s evocative of the truly disturbing, long-haired underwater horrors of Inside. But every time Little Nightmares throws up such a parallel to Playdead’s output, it only ever comes up short by comparison, leading one to wonder just how much better this could have been with controls that felt more responsive, and quicker turnaround times between failures.

Conclusion

Little Nightmares boasts some superb character and environment design, and exceptional sound too, with parts of the Maw screaming as if the ship was a gigantic bionic seafarer. Its story is compellingly told, and the way the main game connects with the DLC is immensely rewarding. But you never really feel like you have full control of Six, and the long breaks between restarts can dump you into a painful loop of spending less time in the game than you do in loading screens. These problems were present in the game’s initial release back in April 2017, and Switch owners can be forgiven for feeling disappointed that Tarsier wasn’t able to fix them for this port. If you can overlook them, though, Little Nightmares is an occasionally moreish puzzler with an exceptionally creepy cast capable of turning any stomach.

Created by Swiss indie developer Digital Kingdom, Invisiballs describes itself as a, “competitive next-gen hide-and-seek,” aiming to utilise the unique features of the Nintendo Switch to make something a little different. It also gives off that immediate multiplayer party vibe that we see so often in the Switch’s digital offerings, with an easy to pick up, one Joy-Con per player approach hoping to allow friends and family to quickly jump in and have a go. So does it achieve these goals, or should it be allowed to slip under your radar?

Before we dive into answering that question, it’s worth noting that this is absolutely not a single-player experience; Invisiballs is designed as a competitive two-to-four player game and you’ll definitely need to have a buddy alongside you to play. Each of the game’s modes are pretty frantic affairs, especially if you fill out all four available player spaces, and you’ll quickly be zooming around each stage, hoping to better your opponents with quick reactions and clever thinking.

You each play as a ball that can be guided around the game’s various stages with a flick of the control stick. Rather than having complete control, though, your ball will whizz across the entire length of the stage until it rests on a wall or barrier, forcing you to plan routes as you go. Aside from this your only other input is an attack on the ‘A’ button, used to destroy any opponents that cross your path, and this can be charged slightly by holding the button down for a couple of seconds.

There is a catch, however; your ball is (for the most part) invisible, and rather than relying on your vision to move around each stage, you’ll actually be using the HD Rumble feature of your Joy-Con to feel when you hit a wall, and also when you pass by an opponent. If you wish, you can actually turn the balls on to full visibility so that you can see them at all times, but considering the vibrations and invisibility make up the game’s main quirk we’d suggest trying to play with it off as standard.

At launch there are two modes to choose from. The first of these is called ‘Free For All’, which simply tasks you with killing off your opponents before they can get to you. Each kill, and subsequently each death, will affect your scores, with points going up and down until someone reaches ten points or the timer runs out. Of course, you won’t know where your opponents are until you pass them by or if they chance an attack (as using your attack gives off light), so you’ll need to remain fully concentrated on the vibrations running through your controller.

The second mode is called ‘Gold Rush’, this time adding a collectable treasure into the mix. Rather than simply knocking out your opponents, you’ll now need to keep hold of a treasure that appears in the centre of the stage, with opponents trying to knock it out of your possession before your timer runs out. If you manage to keep hold of it for long enough, you’ll secure one more point towards victory.

Each of these modes can be played in one of nine stages, each varying in size, and these offer the only real difference from one game to the next. While the main concept is solid, and presented smartly and efficiently, games start to feel extremely repetitive rather quickly. With the same nine stages appearing in both modes, and with the only differences between them being different wall patterns, you’ll likely have had enough after just a handful of games.

There are a couple of clever features woven into the game’s core that make Invisiballs a nicely polished piece of software, but this isn’t enough on its own. One such feature restricts the ability to simply spam the attack as you travel around each stage, with the power of your attack diminishing with each press in quick succession. If the game were to capitalise more on these relatively strong foundations, we could well have another decent party game lurking on the eShop, but without any further development the content is sadly lacking.

Luckily, as early buyers will notice, a third option on the game’s main menu states that more content is coming soon. A quick word with the developer has told us that this third mode will have a bit less confrontation between players, with several treasures spawning on screen and a lesser punishment being dished out when you’re captured by an opponent. On top of this, another option will be added to include tricks and traps, hopefully enhancing the game by adding chaotic objects into the mix.

Digital Kingdom has informed us that this update is expected to go live this summer, with more updates planned for additional maps and modes expected after that, too. This news is pleasing to hear, of course, and could well be just what the game needs to see it soaring upwards in our judgment, but it’s a shame that we’re currently faced with a package that feels slightly undercooked. As it stands, Invisiballs doesn’t provide enough content to justify the asking price, and we can’t imagine many players wanting to stick around for any longer than a dozen or so games. If you’re interested enough in the game’s concept, you might want to hold off and see exactly what content comes from these future updates.

Conclusion

Invisiballs provides us with a competitive party experience that uses HD Rumble to good effect, allowing players to battle it out using only vibrations and quick thinking. The concept is a solid one, and the presentation does the job nicely, but a saddening lack of content across the game’s modes leaves us feeling rather underwhelmed. With multiple updates planned for the near future this issue could soon start to be addressed so, unless you’re entirely sold on the concept alone, we’d recommend holding off until these new features have landed.