{"id":109961,"date":"2020-03-05T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-03-05T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/boulder_dash_30th_anniversary"},"modified":"2020-03-05T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-03-05T18:00:00","slug":"review-boulder-dash-30th-anniversary-an-awkwardly-ported-tribute-thats-for-fans-only","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/03\/05\/review-boulder-dash-30th-anniversary-an-awkwardly-ported-tribute-thats-for-fans-only\/","title":{"rendered":"Review: Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary &#8211; An Awkwardly-Ported Tribute That&#8217;s For Fans Only"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/a9521d64ac55b\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/a9521d64ac55b\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div id>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary Review - Screenshot 1 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/103265\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/103265\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary Review - Screenshot 1 of 3\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"generator nintendo-switch-handheld\">Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>It\u2019s amazing to us that 2020 is only <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/boulder_dash_30th_anniversary\"><strong>Boulder Dash\u2019s<\/strong> 30<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary<\/a>. In fact, come to think of it, that can\u2019t <em>possibly<\/em> be right, because we remember this one back on the Apple II. Indeed, a quick glance online reveals that Boulder Dash was first released in 1984, which would make this Switch version <strong>Boulder Dash 36th Anniversary<\/strong>, if anything. Or it would if we weren\u2019t getting hefty \u201clate mobile game port\u201d vibes from this game\u2019s <em>extremely<\/em> familiar phone-optimised user interface. And yes, it turns out, this <em>was<\/em> a mobile game. Back in 2014. Which was Boulder Dash\u2019s <em>actual<\/em> 30th anniversary. <em>Hmmmm<\/em>.<\/p>\n<p>Still, all things considered, this is <em>assuredly<\/em> Boulder Dash, and you\u2019ve most likely played it or one of its derivatives (such as the excellent <strong>Repton<\/strong>) before. We\u2019ve seen the hero, Rockford (surely one of the most frequently-redesigned characters ever), rock up on Nintendo systems in the past \u2013 besides his bows on DS and 3DS (2007\u2019s <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/ds\/boulder_dash_rocks\">Boulder Dash: Rocks!<\/a><\/strong> and 2011\u2019s <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/3ds\/boulder_dash_xl_3d\">Boulder Dash XL<\/a><\/strong>), the original Boulder Dash saw a NES port back in 1990 (wait, <em>that<\/em> must be what this is the 30<sup>th<\/sup> anniversary of! Let\u2019s all agree with that and move on).<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary Review - Screenshot 2 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/103267\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/103267\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary Review - Screenshot 2 of 3\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"generator nintendo-switch-handheld\">Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>If you somehow <em>haven\u2019t<\/em> encountered it before, Boulder Dash is quite difficult to get your head around at first. You have to move around caves collecting items (mostly colourful gems) while avoiding enemies and hazards. The unusual bit is that while Rockford moves as though he&#8217;s in a top-down game (think <strong>Chip&#8217;s Challenge<\/strong>), gravity is strictly in 2D side-scrolling mode. If you dig out the dirt under \u2013 yes! \u2013 a <em>boulder<\/em>, it will fall straight down and crush anything in its path, despite the fact you can still manoeuvre in all directions. Not only are the boulders slaves to gravity, they\u2019re also slaves to momentum, and they\u2019ll roll down \u201csteps\u201d if you\u2019ve left such a path in the dirt, which may require you to \u2013 you guessed it \u2013 <em>dash<\/em> out of the way. It\u2019s a little weird, but you\u2019ll quickly get the hang of it.<\/p>\n<p>Graphically, Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary can best be described as \u201cfunctional\u201d. It doesn\u2019t look bad, but it doesn\u2019t have any real flair. That said, it\u2019s hardly a game that has ever pushed its spectacular looks as a selling point. With something as ultimately demanding as Boulder Dash, the most important thing is the ability to instantly parse what\u2019s available to you in any given situation. <em>And you can.<\/em> So it\u2019s exactly as good-looking as it needs to be; it\u2019s a simple arcade puzzle game that lives or dies on its lack of visual clutter.<\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, the menus are a different story. Stiff, banal and strangely confusing, they\u2019re quite frankly hideous remnants of the game\u2019s shameful freemium past. Speaking of which, there\u2019s quite a lot of that about. Each level ranks you one, two or three stars based on your score, with certain numbers of stars needed to unlock later worlds. You can also gather items within the levels that will give you an easier time \u2013 the ability to freeze gravity for example, or use dynamite to blow up inconvenient walls.<\/p>\n<aside class=\"picture embed\"><a title=\"Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary Review - Screenshot 3 of 3\" href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/103273\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/103273\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary Review - Screenshot 3 of 3\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"generator nintendo-switch-docked\">Captured on Nintendo Switch (Docked)<\/p>\n<\/aside>\n<p>You get so many of these items thrown at you that we found ourselves wondering if the game had been balanced in such a way that the levels were near-unbeatable without them, and their microtransaction intent became jarringly clear. Of course, it would be unfair to criticise Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary for having previously been microtransaction-heavy, but simply giving the necessary items to the player feels a little bit like a shrug of the shoulders where deeper design tweaks would have been strongly preferable. That\u2019s speculation, of course, but the fact that the game raises these feelings is a symptom of feeling a little undercooked, a little cheap. And, you know, it <em>is<\/em> cheap. But there\u2019s <em>being<\/em> cheap and there\u2019s <em>feeling<\/em> cheap, and only one of those is positive.<\/p>\n<p>You\u2019re certainly far from getting short-changed, mind you. There are almost 300 levels here with extra characters to unlock, classic 1984 levels to play and \u2013 perhaps most excitingly \u2013 new stages from Boulder Dash\u2019s original creators. There\u2019s a <em>huge<\/em> amount of content to keep you plugging away and the levels get very difficult, very quickly. If you like Boulder Dash, this is almost certainly the version to get.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"conclusion\">\n<h2 class=\"heading\">Conclusion<\/h2>\n<p>It\u2019s a little bit of a cop-out, but if you enjoy this series you are likely to wring a tremendous amount of gaming glee out of Boulder Dash 30th Anniversary. It\u2019s vintage stuff and plenty of it. However, if you\u2019re totally new to the series, you can expect to get viscerally frustrated by the old-school microcomputer cruelty exhibited by many of the levels; it\u2019s also a little tainted by a terrible UI held over from its mobile game past. Still, the price is right and if you\u2019re up for a proper challenge there are much worse ways to get your rocks off \u2013 or you could just wait a few years for Boulder Dash 40th Anniversary, which will most likely arrive on a Nintendo console many years after its initial release.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Captured on Nintendo Switch (Handheld\/Undocked) It\u2019s amazing to us that 2020 is only Boulder Dash\u2019s 30th anniversary. In fact, come to think of it, that can\u2019t possibly be right, because we remember this one back on the Apple II. Indeed, a quick glance online reveals that Boulder Dash was first released in 1984, which would [&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-109961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109961","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=109961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/109961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=109961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=109961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=109961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}