Category: Nintendo News

Piano-playing, musically-dueling Polish composer Frédéric Chopin is back again, with a sequel to his stylish piano game Resurrection Of Music, by developer Forever Entertainment. This time, subtitled Evil Strikes Back, our heroic maestro’s duty is to rescue his precious Muses from a new, sinister and enigmatic threat (weirdly reminiscent of Metal Gear Solid’s Psycho Mantis) and once again restore decency to the modern musical landscape. Revisiting Chopin’s repertoire of classical compositions and giving them a modern makeover, Evil Strikes Back, on the one hand, improves on its predecessor, but also maintains some of the small but significant niggles that hampered it. 

After losing his heart in the first game (and presumably for playing music this time around), a much more self-assured Chopin swaps his trusty upright for a far more radical keytar and trades in his golden flying horse-drawn carriage for a vehicular pop culture icon. Our hip and continent-hopping pianist hero travels across the globe to battle it out with eccentric (and sometimes awkwardly stereotypical) opponents. Admittedly, the story is no more or less captivating or comprehensible than the first. It isn’t helped by the fragmented dialogue exchanges and cheesy voice acting – in an attempt to compliment the bright and vivid art style with hammy caricatures, they come across as mildly crass rather than interesting. 

Chopin duels it out with wackier musical villains, based on musical icons that provide a bit of exposition to move your quest forward. Although the plot never really deviates from dealing with one vendetta to the next, the exaggerated hand-drawn art style and vivid color schemes add a distinct identity to each new location and character, with the more interesting of Chopin’s new foes appearing on film sets, county fairs and even Wembley Stadium. There are even some Easter eggs scattered around for the eagle-eyed popular culture vultures among you. 

Side by side, both the original Chopin compositions chosen and their modern interpretations are consistently better in Evil Strikes Back, focusing a little more on the style and character rather than setting from the first game. Sometimes the style or genre don’t quite match up, and unfortunately, it still suffers from curious decisions and the technical annoyances that still haven’t been addressed. For instance, during the opening of a song early on in the game, there’s little to no sound at all, which feels unnecessary. 

There are initially 10 songs and four difficulty settings on offer, and the Easy setting is still too forgiving while completing a song on the hardest setting is still really tricky. Both the general aesthetic and user interface remains the same, with cascading notes falling towards your piano keys, and a successfully timed press will fill the bar at the top until it’s green. When it’s full, you win and progress to the next destination.

While the much-preferred touch controls return, the seven piano keys can now be manually mapped to the face buttons. This will help some of you, but the touch control is still much easier to get to grips with. There might be a little trial and error involved, as holding the console in one hand in handheld mode is okay, but playing in tabletop can make activating special attacks a pain, wherever you place it. The game still obscures your view of the descending notes with praise words, and upon completion, you’ll get a breakdown of your ‘musicality’, with a pretty standard three star rating system, an accuracy percentage, and a combo count. 

Conclusion

Frederic: Evil Strikes Back is a pretty ‘by the numbers’ sequel, and despite the (still quite low) track list being superior to the first, the characters, dialogue and presentation niggles still remain. There’s plenty of personality to the tracks, and seeing Chopin go up against stadium rockers is strange yet amusing, but the satire and parodies from the first game miss the mark more often than not this time round. The visuals are still bold, and you’ll have an enjoyable experience if you can overcome its shortcomings. While Deemo and even VOEZ are still the best of the genre on Nintendo Switch, Frederick: Evil Strikes Back’s mix of interesting reinterpretations of classical compositions and sometimes charming art style are still worth a go. 

Nowadays, Metroidvanias are all the rage with indie developers, all attempting to offer up their own unique take on the genre. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t, but there’s something to be said about the power of simplicity and just going back to the basics. Xeodrifter is a game that plays it straight with the that open-ended formula, offering up a focused, concise experience that hits all the notes it needs to, even if it comes off as being considerably more barebones than its peers.

The story of Xeodrifter sees the titular character flying their spaceship through the stars, only to have it crippled when a meteor strikes. You then must travel between a system of four planets, running, jumping, and shooting your way through hordes of aliens as you search for a warp core to replace your damaged one. Along the way, you’ll pick up several upgrades that grant your character meaningful bonuses in traversal and combat.

Gameplay in Xeodrifter follows the tried-and-true Super Metroid formula, doing little to expand on it, but showing mastery of what makes the genre great. Controls are a little loose, but the gunplay and platforming still manages to feel rock solid and is an absolute blast to tackle. There’s a near perfect mixture of platforming challenges, combat, and backtracking here, with the flow of the game taking you around the four planets at a brisk and exciting pace. Memorizing enemy patterns and snagging new upgrades feel quite satisfying, and you’ll frequently find yourself looking ahead to the next thing you can do. Each boss you defeat will drop another upgrade that allows you to access more of the map than before, and you can also pick up health and gun upgrades to augment your combat performance.

The gun modification is one of the stronger aspects of Xeodrifter, offering you an RPG-lite way of controlling the character’s offensive options. You can invest gun upgrades into shot speed, power, spread, range, and reach, which leaves plenty of room for mixing and matching of attributes to meet your playstyle. It’s a bit of a shame that the enemy resistance seldom demands that you switch up tactics, but the customization aspect nonetheless adds a little bit more scope for replay value on subsequent runs.

Level design of the planets is well thought out, though they can tend to feel a less mazelike than one would expect from a Metroidvania. Exploration is still encouraged and backtracking to other planets after getting an upgrade almost always yields new results, but there’s a lingering sense of linearity to the experience that stifles one’s sense of freedom somewhat. Each planet is essentially composed of a couple loops of corridors with a few secret passages scattered here or there, which means that it’s next to impossible to get lost or find yourself stumbling upon an upgrade by accident. Some might appreciate this stripped back approach, but let’s just say there are a lot less surprises in Xeodrifter than you might expect to find in a game in this genre.

From a presentation perspective, Xeodrifter is top-notch, demonstrating the concept of design by subtraction quite well. The HD 8-Bit art style is demonstrated to great effect; managing to capture the look and feel of a retro game while retaining cool elements that only modern hardware could manage. Though environment design tends to get a bit repetitive, there’s plenty of color and smooth animation here that keeps things visually interesting. 

Similarly, the sci-fi soundtrack matches the theme perfectly, capturing a sense of mystery and wonder quite well. The Switch version also features HD Rumble support, which is utilized to a greater effect here than you might think. Whether it be a missed shot impacting a wall or the rumbling of a submarine engine, you can feel just about every single kind of movement that happens on screen, which helps to significantly increase the immersion factor.

One of the most significant criticisms we have with Xeodrifter is that it feels a little too stripped back for its own good. There’s only a handful of enemies to fight across the entire game, and every boss fight consists of battling a palette swapped version of the previous boss with a little more health and one new attack. Couple this with the straightforward level design, and you’ve got a rather predictable open-ended platformer that can be cleared 100% in around three hours. Now, those three hours are a joy to play through while they last, but it feels like a bit of a let down when the credits roll and there’s nothing more to see. Xeodrifter has all the elements it needs to be considered one of the greatest games in the genre, but there simply isn’t enough content present to hold one’s interest for very long.

Conclusion

Xeodrifter is an interesting game, in that it’s both easy and difficult to recommend. The upside is that this is a finely crafted Metroidvania that oozes quality in almost every fashion, but the downside is that there just isn’t a whole lot to it. If you’re looking for a simple, straightforward open-ended platformer that’s easy to get into (or one that’s good for speedrunning), this is the game for you. If you’re looking for an in-depth experience that you can really sink your teeth into, this certainly isn’t. We’d generally give this one a recommendation – it’s a great ride while it lasts – but just bear in mind that it won’t last you long.

The hybrid design of Nintendo Switch makes it the ideal system for all types of games. As illustrated by previous releases on the platform, there are certain games catering to prolonged couch sessions while other titles have been providing audiences with shorter bursts of fun better suited to the daily commute. Qbik, developed by Norbert Palacz and published by Forever Entertainment, manages to find the right balance between these two play styles – with sessions able to be enjoyed for a few minutes in transit or even an hour or two in your living room.

Qbik is a single-player title where you take control of a self-aware blue block, with one eye and a big mouth, as it traverses 63 levels filled with challenging puzzles, riddles and brainteasers. The more levels you manage to complete, the more you learn about the block’s back story and the grim universe it resides in. The common joy from a game such as this typically comes from solving the puzzles presented before you. It’s no different in this case. The primary task is to consume all the yellow blocks in each level. This might sound simple, but as with all games of this kind, additional mechanics are slowly incorporated over time making each section increasingly difficult. 

New blocks with different properties further add to these stimulating puzzle-solving sessions. Generally, blocks will either halt your progress or aid you in finding a solution to a level. There are plenty of different varieties as well – from dirt blocks to yellow sand-like blocks that fall when a block beneath is removed. Other mechanics that come into play later include teleportation and switches. Even if these devices function in a predictable fashion, each one adds a further layer of complexity to the puzzling action, and makes it all that much more rewarding upon completion of a level.  

As you progress, levels grow in size. From this point onwards it becomes important to survey your surroundings and plan your moves in advance in order to succeed. With the forces of gravity in play, the only direction Qbik can move is horizontally. This is when other methods of movement such as teleportation become even more important – allowing you to reach higher ground if you have dropped to the depths below. If you do find yourself struggling on a certain level, you can rewind time prior to an error. 

The ability gives you the chance to experiment until you finally have that “eureka” moment and the solution becomes apparent. Of course, you can also completely restart levels from the very beginning as well. There is one last option you can resort to. That is the skip function. If a puzzle is too hard you can skip it altogether. The catch – you can only skip a total of five levels, so chose wisely – else persist. With not that much hand-holding, this is as much help as you’ll get from the game as you work your way through each level. 

Undoubtedly, the most surprising inclusion in this package is the level editor. It might not be on the same level as certain other games, however, it’s still a welcome addition. There are no limitations in terms of what can be used within the editor. Here you can use all the same blocks and special devices available to you in the main game as well as shape and decorate the levels however you like. The main setback is you can only share maps locally on your system (at the time of review). Other releases of the game enable you to upload your own custom levels and share them with the wider community. Despite this drawback, it’s still fun to create your own levels. The controls also enhance this mode – with the touch controls in the handheld mode making block placement and movement both quick and easy. Admittedly, the button controls are not quite as effortless at times.    

The world surrounding Qbik are dim caverns enhanced by atmospheric sounds and eerie tones. As recycled as the pixel-art is, it still does a great job bringing the simple game world to life and adding an extra layer of polish. The star block also has a great sense of character because of the quality animations and sound effects, along with the assistance of the dialogue and storytelling. 

Conclusion

Qbik may not be a ground-breaking puzzle game but it does what any title under the genre should do; it provides you with a great sense of accomplishment. It’s exactly how you want to feel when playing a game like this. Its puzzles get better as you progress due to the complexity, making it an obvious go to for fans of the genre. The level editor is also a nifty inclusion despite its obvious limitation. Still, in this mode you’ll be able to experiment to your heart’s content.  

As a Switch title, Qbik is yet another accessible game that can adapt to your play style – be it a brief session when you’re out and about, or a longer period of gaming in between the bigger releases you’re currently playing. If you’re eager for more puzzle action on the Switch, this is definitely an eShop game you should check out.