Category: Nintendo News

When the original Gekido Advance released on the Game Boy Advance back in 2002 it took many by surprise: a beautiful side-scrolling brawler featuring detailed sprites, lovely animation, excellent backgrounds, memorable music and excellent cutscenes hid the shortcomings of a somewhat repetitive brawler. A good 16 years later Tetsuo is back and this time the playing field is Nintendo Switch. Will lightning strike twice?

Instead of simply porting over the original GBA game, developer Naps Team took quite some time adding several extra features to this package. You can choose between the original cutscenes and music or opt for the newly anime-style cutscenes and reworked music tracks. There are some extra screen size options along with the original GBA resolution: a full screen stretch or a strange 16:9 hybrid that stretches the playing field during the outside portions of the game, but shrinks it back to regular GBA screen ratio when you’re inside houses or caves. It might take you a bit of time to pick your favourite among the three, but you will eventually stick with one for the remainder of your play sessions.

The original story mode featuring Tetsuo’s trek along five levels of supernatural happenings returns along with a couple of welcome extra modes (‘Survival’ and the rogue-like ‘Relic Hunt’). Unlike a classic brawler, you don’t simply keep walking from left to right clearing baddies to progress. You need to venture inside caves and houses, move up and down ladders and even do a spot of the odd platforming while looking for items such as keys to open locked doors or, in the case of the opening level, a lantern to be able to navigate in dark caves. The back tracking and problem solving does help alleviate the repetitive nature of the fights, but it is barely enough of a game mechanic to keep you going.

The game lets you pick what buttons you wish to map on your Switch controller of choice, with a four button set up for punch, kick, jump and run (sadly you can not double-tap to run like in the original). There is only one special ‘area of effect’ move done by pressing punch+kick that takes time to recharge, but you can use it at any time at a cost of your life, a feature seemingly lifted from Streets Of Rage 3. You can also access special combo finishers by sorting out the correct chain of punches and kicks to input, resulting in some flashier, fire-upgraded finishers. It might get you some time to get used to them, but they do eventually become second nature. 

On the subject of ‘second’, the best addition to the package is the now included two-player co-op mode that will certainly help even the odds. Even the most common of enemies are incredibly tricky to deal with without taking some seriously cheap shots and chipping your life bar away. As per genre demands, picking up food from the floor will recover some of that lost health but beware that not everything on the floor is an actual bonus; You will learn to fear grabbing power-ups without paying attention when you discover that some for them are actually power-downs like ‘Slowdown’, ‘Broken’ or (shudder) ‘Reverse Controls’.

Despite not being a straight emulation, this package still runs on the original source code and that legacy proves somewhat troublesome; You will never be fighting more than three or four enemies on screen at a time – the old GBA limit – despite Switch more than being able to display hundreds of them. Oh, and every shadow you see on the floor isn’t what it seems – they’re actually holes that will sap your precious energy every time you fall into them (and you will do so quite often we assure). Sadly on our very first run we manage to lock up the game on the first level bosses, which was a real shame because we are actually getting into that specific fight. 

Despite being a purely subjective issue the control customisation does not enable you to use the digital D-Pad for movement with the analog as your only choice. This is somewhat ironic considering the game was initially designed to be played with the GBA D-Pad and we often found it more difficult to play with the analog stick than in the original version. Some of this later issues can be patched out in the future while the former is just something you will have to accept as mandatory legacy from the original game design limitations.

Long time SNK fans will also immediately notice that Tetsuo (and even a few of the enemies) look and move in an uncanny familiar fashion. This is due to Naps Team original love for the SNK games and if you haven’t figure out yet, Testuo is a sort of tribute to Kyo, Yori, K’ and even Shingo from The King Of Fighters series. At times instead of an original game Gekido: Kitaro’s Revenge looks like an ambitious fan-made tribute to the genre. A true shame that it so clearly still holds on to the original game flaws, including relying on too much gameplay repetition and thus sadly at the end of the day frustration settles in more often instead of the fun this genre should be providing.

Conclusion

Gekido: Kintaro’s Revenge is a love letter to the original Game Boy Advance game that many probably didn’t notice was pushing the envelope as far as graphics, animation, music and presentation were expected on Nintendo’s 32-bit handheld. As such and despite excellent added extras to this Switch package, it stubbornly restrains itself in the past and as is only truly recommended if you fell nostalgic towards the original game. Other players should by now have learned where to better pick your side-scrolling street fights on Switch’s library. The quest for the ultimate side-scrolling Switch brawler continues…

While the ‘J’ in ‘JRPG’ ostensibly stands for ‘Japanese’, it refers to a style of role-playing game rather than country of origin; strong, often linear stories and turn-based combat are the calling cards of the genre, and Western-made games such as Child Of Light and Cosmic Star Heroine follow its conventions just as much as classic Japanese examples a la Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. That’s also the case with Earthlock, from Norwegian developer Snowcastle Games. After a successful 2014 Kickstarter run that saw Earthlock: Festival Of Magic release on Wii U (among other platforms), this significantly updated version has landed on the Switch. A love letter to the genre, it plays like a thoughtfully modern take on PS1-era Square adventures, and will be a real treat for JRPG fans.

Earthlock takes place in Umbra, a world bearing the scars of past catastrophe and an imbalance of ‘amri’, a magical energy. After a brief playable in situ introduction, you’ll begin your journey in earnest as Amon, a young scavenger living with his uncle in the town of Zaber. A routine mission gone awry turns Amon’s world on its head and sends him spiralling into conflict with empires, and it’s your job to guide him – along with an ever-growing cast of characters – on his journey to save his family, and ultimately, Umbra.

It’s an enjoyable tale that shows strong parallels to Final Fantasy IX, especially in its six playable party members. The characters – from a kindly ‘hogbunny’ named Gnart and capable military captain Ive to Taika, her loyal dog – are interesting and likable, and we quickly become invested in seeing their stories through. The writing can be oddly hit-or-miss; dialogue ranges from excellent to just okay, and there’s little linguistic coherence among invented place names and terms. Still, it’s an entertaining narrative, and its strong characters kept us interested throughout.

In terms of its gameplay, Earthlock builds off of a solid JRPG base: you’ll move your party of adventurers through a traversable overworld, entering cities, towns, and villages to progress the plot, pick-up quests, and refuel, in-between exploring monster-ridden dungeons and fighting turn-based battles with enemies and occasional bosses. It’s a classic formula, but a big part of what makes Earthlock so fun is that it improves on the genre’s conventions in tangible, modern ways.

In battle, for instance, Earthlock introduces several new wrinkles on the standard turn-based template. Before initiating combat, you can gather multiple enemies to fight by getting within range and then giving them the run-around as you pick up additional adversaries, Pied Piper-style, for EXP bonuses. Once you get into battle, you’ll find that each character has multiple ‘Stances’, which enable them to access different skills. Switching Stances costs a turn, but can be well worth it; Amon’s Stances allow for either melee combat and thieving or long-range elemental attacks, for instance, while Ive can switch between setting strategic traps and slinging arrows from crossbow.

Instead of consuming an MP meter, every action in battle uses one or more yellow squares of energy, which replenish at a certain rate for each character every turn. This system – recalling the one used in Final Fantasy: The Four Heroes Of Light – is appealingly simple, and also means you won’t be stuck backtracking to top up MP in the middle of exploration, which keeps the pace snappy and fun. The controls in battle are also worth mentioning; you’ll use the left analog stick to quick-select between different ‘submenus’ – with no menus involved – and the face buttons to dial in different actions within each of those. It’s quick and streamlined, and before long you’ll end up with muscle memory to pull off specific combos and strategies with ease.

In addition to their on skills and attacks, your characters also benefit from party dynamics in the Pair system. Pairing off party members lets them level up their bond, as well as gain access to a shared meter in battle. When it fills – by attacking in concert – either member of the twosome can use their ‘Super Stance’, a Limit Break-like special move that can be activated on command. Not only is this a great way to save up some extra power for bosses and challenging battles, it’s also a fun way to encourage mixing up your party formations, and experimenting with all the combinations on offer.

Outside of battle, you can customise how your characters progress through the Talent Board system, which lets you personalise their stats, skills, and abilities. Like the Sphere Grid in Final Fantasy X, it’s couched in the guise of a puzzle-like system, where you’ll need to connect different nodes as you place them on the board in order to activate their effects. All this adds up to a combat system that feels fun and fresh throughout; you’ll learn new strategies and skills at a good pace, and varying the Pairs in your party allows for plenty of experimentation as you go.

Beyond the combat, Earthlock also adds thoughtful new touches to the overworld exploration. There’s an excellent focus on gardening, for instance; you’ll find different seeds on your travels, and be able to plant them in various patches and plots around the world. By making sure each plant is watered according to its needs (by keeping a micro-game meter correctly balanced), you’ll be able to harvest rewards: ingredients for crafting items, weapons, and more.

Each character also has a special role to play in the overworld through their unique field abilities. Amon can find useful items in scrapheaps, for example, while Gnart can forage through flower fields. It’s a nice touch that helps underscore the importance of every member of your party, and gives a practical reason to switch which character you control – made delightfully simple by the satisfying shortcut of pressing the ‘L’ button and swinging the analog stick.

Along with Earthlock’s modern take on JRPG gameplay, it brings a similarly thoughtfully updated look. Its gorgeous, lived-in environments recall the busy prerendered backgrounds of Final Fantasy IX – including treasure chests hidden in nooks and crannies obscured from camera-view – and it’s both an immediately appealing aesthetic and an impressive in-engine achievement. They’re backdrops just begging to be explored, and with unique settings that go beyond desert and forest tropes; one of the first dungeons you’ll comb through takes the form of a partially-submerged mansion in the process of being reclaimed by the swamp it was built on.

In fact, Earthlock’s presentation in general is quite impressive; beyond the backgrounds, the character models look lovely, and animations – from battle stances and attacks to kicking open treasure chests – are smooth and full of personality. Enemy designs are imaginative and fun, and the whole experience feels wonderfully polished and clean. The orchestral score provides an excellent audio backdrop as well, with an impressive variety of memorable melodies.

For as good a job as Earthlock does feeling like a truly modern JRPG, however, there are some disappointing archaisms that really stick out; most notably, an antiquated save system that’s limited to designated points, with only one or two in each dungeon/town. Not being able to save mid-dungeon is arguably a design feature in many RPGs, but Earthlock’s implementation feels overly restrictive, and is a particular issue in a (potentially) portable adventure. Another unfortunate throwback to the 32-bit era: loading screens are frequent and long enough to annoy, popping up between rooms and in other common transitions. Their persistent presence breaks up the flow, and can start to grate in longer sessions.

Finally, Earthlock also feels like a real blast from the past – think N64 – in its implementation of rumble. Rather than providing subtle force feedback with the Switch’s HD Rumble, it instead just turns the motors on full blast, sometimes for seconds at a time. It’s bone-shaking and awful (especially disappointing after seeing RPGs like Golf Story integrate HD Rumble into the genre in thoughtful ways), but it can thankfully be turned off.

Conclusion

An indie adventure with a lush world, fun characters, and enjoyable battles, Earthlock brings the soul of PS1-era JRPGs to the Switch with excellent results. Inconsistent dialogue and notable load times are among its few missteps, but as a package, it captures the appeal of the epoch wonderfully. If you’re looking for a fresh-feeling JRPG that still calls back to the classics, this is a lovely choice.