{"id":1020,"date":"2017-09-30T14:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-30T14:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/deemo"},"modified":"2017-09-30T14:00:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-30T14:00:00","slug":"review-deemo-switch-eshop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2017\/09\/30\/review-deemo-switch-eshop\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: DEEMO (Switch eShop)"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Screenshot 1 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84980\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84980\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"NSwitch DS Deemo 05 Mediaplayer Large\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Taiwanese developer Rayark may best be known for its music games on mobile platforms, but it was also responsible for one of the best surprises in the Switch\u2019s launch lineup with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/voez\"><strong>VOEZ<\/strong><\/a>. Brought to the Switch by publisher Flyhigh Works, this colourful title showed how well once-free-to-play rhythm games could work on Nintendo\u2019s handheld wonder, and now Flyhigh Works is back to bring another well-respected Rayark rhythm game to the eShop: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/deemo\"><strong>DEEMO<\/strong><\/a>. Stylish and fun, with a wonderful soundtrack and compelling narrative, Deemo is every bit the hit that VOEZ was \u2014 and this Switch port is the best version yet.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Screenshot 2 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84978\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84978\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"NSwitch DS Deemo 06 Mediaplayer Large\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Our story begins with a young girl named Alice who falls, Wonderland-like, through a trapdoor in the sky, and down into the castle home of a mysterious pianist named Deemo. With an indistinct face and long, slender limbs, Deemo seems like something out of a hazy dream, and he may well be \u2014 everything\u2019s delightfully surreal this side of the rabbit hole, including the large tree stump on which his piano rests. As Deemo plays, the tree suddenly springs to life and begins to grow around the piano, higher and higher, and towards Alice\u2019s entry point in the sky. So the two set to making music, in the hopes of growing her a way to get back home.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s a lovely, melancholy tale, and to help them on their way and watch it unfold all you have to do is pick a song and get playing. Deemo opens with only a few tracks to choose from, but as the tree shoots up \u2014 encouraged ever upward as you play \u2014you\u2019ll quickly unlock many, many more. Songs are organized into different \u2018packs\u2019, and you\u2019ll earn new ones by nudging the tree to certain meter milestones or by clearing specific songs \u2014 there are even a few to be found by searching point-and-click-style in Deemo\u2019s ethereal treehouse.<\/p>\n<p>There are over 200 tracks in all, and if music is the heart of a rhythm game, Deemo has a great, big, wonderful heart. The selection is fantastic, and leans heavily on indie composers and producers from Taiwan, Japan, South Korea, and Hong Kong; this isn\u2019t the kind of rhythm game where you\u2019ll know the songs ahead of time, but you\u2019ll absolutely find plenty to fall in love with along the way.\u00a0<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Screenshot 3 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84977\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84977\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"NSwitch DS Deemo 02 Mediaplayer Large\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Deemo\u2019s instrument of choice means there\u2019s a strong focus on piano in the instrumentation, but the genres go well beyond what you might expect. There\u2019s instrumental and vocal J-pop, rock, and dance; cabaret, lounge, and light jazz; classical, Asian folk, and dubstep; bossa nova, ragtime, and club bangers. The variety is wonderful, and aside from a tiny number of exceptions \u2014 there\u2019s a bit of generic-sounding electronica \u2014 it\u2019s top quality, memorable music.<\/p>\n<p>It\u2019s also a blast to play along to. Deemo\u2019s touchscreen-only rhythm gameplay is simple and straightforward: notes fall from the top of the screen, and when they reach the horizontal line stretched along the bottom, you\u2019ll tap where they hit. There aren\u2019t any predefined \u2018lanes\u2019 in Deemo; rather, notes of varying widths trickle down from the top at angles, and you\u2019ll move your fingers to meet them wherever they may fall on the line. Aside from the basic black \u2018tap notes\u2019, there are also yellow \u2018slide notes\u2019, which come in rhythmically-tight-knit groups; you can either treat these as taps or \u2014 as is pretty much essential in faster songs \u2014 slide a finger across the line to catch them all in quick succession.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Screenshot 4 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84981\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84981\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"NSwitch DS Deemo 03 Mediaplayer Large\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>For both types of notes the closer you are to perfect in your timing the better grade (and visual feedback) you\u2019ll get for the hit, from \u201cCharming\u201d (orange) down to \u201cNon-Charming\u201d (green) and a \u201cMiss\u201d (blue). You\u2019ll earn a percentage score at the end for how well you did, with higher scores sending the tree skyward faster.<\/p>\n<p>Each song can be played in Easy, Normal, or Hard difficulties (with individual 1-10 challenge ratings for each song), and the charts themselves are well thought out and fun to learn. The piano basis for most songs means you won\u2019t see many crazy kinetics or screen-hopping acrobatics \u00e0 la VOEZ \u2014 Deemo charts actually mirror real-life piano fingerings quite closely, so if you\u2019ve ever played a keyboard instrument the chord rolls, parallel thirds, and hand-over-hands you practiced will come in handy here \u2014 but it does really feel like you\u2019re playing the song, and there are plenty of intricate passages to master.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Screenshot 5 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84979\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84979\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"NSwitch DS Deemo 01 Mediaplayer Large\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The difficulty scales well too; easy charts generally pick out the most salient anchor points of a melody to follow, and should be accessible for rhythm newcomers while still providing a sense of accomplishment. Normal charts are tough-but-fun runs with chords and arpeggios, and Hard is a good challenge for rhythm aficionados, with plenty of parallel movement and every syncopation, trill, and grace note intact. The only issue we had was with the Hard mode charts for certain solo piano pieces; the more expressive of these can involve lots of micro-variations in tempo, all of which are reflected in the note patterns, and it seems unreasonable to ask players to essentially sightread the rubato.<\/p>\n<p>No matter the tempo of the piece, however, you can also control the speed at which the notes fall independently of the difficulty, and this makes a huge difference. Speeding up the charts can make otherwise dense patterns easier to read on harder songs, and also means more tolerant timing \u2014 if you\u2019re finding things harder than you\u2019d expect, we recommend revving the speed up a few notches.<\/p>\n<p>One of the reasons Deemo is so much fun to play on Switch is that it\u2019s such a great fit for the system, and we mean that literally. Having spent time with the mobile and PlayStation Vita versions as well, the Switch\u2019s touchscreen feels like the best way to play \u2014 the screen is perfectly sized to comfortably accommodate two hands side-by-side, letting you put two or three fingers from each one in charge of a different side of the chart. In comparison to the sometimes cramped finger-athletics on other devices, playing Deemo like this on Switch feels effortless and smooth, and more like playing an instrument than plunking away at a screen. Our preferred way to play is with the Switch lying flat on a table, but we also found it comfortable in tablet mode in the lap; button play is planned in a future update, but for now, this in an exclusively undocked experience.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Screenshot 6 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84976\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84976\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"NSwitch DS Deemo 04 Mediaplayer Large\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>The screen size isn\u2019t the only improvement Deemo\u2019s Switch port can boast over its brethren; this version also has our favourite progression system of the bunch. The mobile and Vita versions are both quite grindy, doling out new songs at a slow enough drip that you\u2019ll find yourself replaying the same tracks several times on different difficulties to make progress on the tree. While replaying songs is certainly part of the fun of rhythm games, it\u2019s less fun to have to flounder your way through Hard Mode charts before you\u2019re ready just to progress, and happily the Switch version drops these free-to-play gatings in favour of a much more generous model. New songs and packs are unlocked faster than you can play through them, and we reached the end credits \u2014 though far from the end of the adventure! \u2014 without playing a single song twice. This also means you\u2019ll be able to see the story through to the end even if you can\u2019t hack Hard mode, which is a nice improvement over VOEZ.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Comparison with VOEZ also brings up one of Deemo\u2019s few shortcomings to the forefront, however: the presentation in the music game itself is quite drab. That\u2019s not to say that Deemo\u2019s a dull game; on the contrary, the backdrops to the point-and-click adventure portion are gorgeous, and the key art that accompanies each song in the selection menu is fun and fantastically varied \u2014 we loved seeing Deemo and Alice in all different sorts of art styles and adventures. The problem is that once you get into the actual rhythm gameplay, that personality disappears, replaced by a sepia-tone score with the song title written out matter-of-factly in between the staves. There are admittedly some nice touches within that frame \u2014 like the second piano part accompanying your own floating out from the rhythm line in small shadowy notes \u2014 but when you play more than a few charts in a row, the lack of colour and visual variety becomes readily apparent.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Screenshot 7 of 7\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84976\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/84976\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"NSwitch DS Deemo 04 Mediaplayer Large\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Other than that, however, we don\u2019t have any real complaints with Deemo. While this Switch port lacks the animated cutscenes and extra epilogue of the Vita version, for us, the hundred-odd extra tracks and much-improved progression system here easily eclipse the omissions. Audio quality is excellent, and there are ample options to calibrate input timing and adjust response sound volume \u2014 we found turning it off entirely made solo piano pieces much more pleasant. We\u2019d love the ability to mark songs as favourites and sort by difficulty, but that\u2019s a minor nitpick, and the current pack-based arrangement is much better for thematic browsing than a single massive tracklist.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Taiwanese developer Rayark may best be known for its music games on mobile platforms, but it was also responsible for one of the best surprises in the Switch\u2019s launch lineup with VOEZ. Brought to the Switch by publisher Flyhigh Works, this colourful title showed how well once-free-to-play rhythm games could work on Nintendo\u2019s handheld wonder, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1020","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1020"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1020\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1020"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1020"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1020"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}