{"id":119148,"date":"2020-10-10T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-10-10T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/reviews\/switch-eshop\/macbat_64"},"modified":"2020-10-10T13:00:00","modified_gmt":"2020-10-10T13:00:00","slug":"mini-review-macbat-64-a-pitifully-weak-clone-of-those-n64-platformers-you-know-and-love","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2020\/10\/10\/mini-review-macbat-64-a-pitifully-weak-clone-of-those-n64-platformers-you-know-and-love\/","title":{"rendered":"Mini Review: Macbat 64 &#8211; A Pitifully Weak Clone Of Those N64 Platformers You Know And Love"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/96ac3dda518ef\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/96ac3dda518ef\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<aside class=\"picture embed pictures\" id=\"screenshots\"><a href=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/109178\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/screenshots\/109178\/900x.jpg\" alt=\"Macbat 64 Review - Screenshot 1 of 6\"><\/a><\/aside>\n<p>Nostalgia is a powerful motivator in gaming. Providing a sense of comfort and familiarity, developers often target this feeling through sequels and remakes, but in the last decade, we\u2019ve seen a greater rise in spiritual successors and that\u2019s been particularly prominent for early 3D platformers, <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/yooka-laylee\">Yooka-Laylee<\/a><\/strong> and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/nintendo-switch\/a_hat_in_time\">A Hat In Time<\/a><\/strong> being prime examples. Attempting to recreate that N64 feel, we now have <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/switch-eshop\/macbat_64\">Macbat 64: Journey Of A Nice Chap<\/a><\/strong> from Diploducus Games, taking place across the Kiwibbean. It certainly feels like an N64 game, but completely fails to do this era justice in the execution.<\/p>\n<p>You play as Macbat, a monocle-wearing bat living in Kiwiland, a region once ruled by the evil Melon King before his defeat two years prior by a singular kiwi bird (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/games\/wii\/ivy_the_kiwi\">Ivy?<\/a>). Residents have since seen peace but recently, water production has stopped at the \u201cWatery Factory\u201d and entry is sealed by six different keys. Tasked by your parrot friend to investigate, it comes down to Macbat to find them all and discover what happened. Utilising a storybook aesthetic to journey between levels, Macbat 64 has 10 levels in total and comes filled with self-referential humour that often breaks the fourth wall.<\/p>\n<p>Across most levels, all you can do is move around, walk up to NPCs to talk with them, and jump. There\u2019s no combat here and Macbat\u2019s move-set is pretty limited. Your main task is finding the area\u2019s key to complete it and most areas have a set of collectable items that contribute towards getting it, like coins for buying items or balloons to lift objects. Unfortunately, Macbat 64 executes this poorly and it simply isn\u2019t fun. Gameplay is extremely basic and feels like a weak rehash of better games, made worse by poor camera implementation. Some levels change up gameplay to bring variety, including a 2D segment and go-karting, but they don\u2019t feel cohesive and are equally dull.<\/p>\n<p>Each level is also beatable within 5 minutes, meaning you could finish the story in just over an hour, though considering the extremely low price point, that\u2019s more forgivable. Ultimately though, whilst the N64-era aesthetic will appeal to some, Macbat 64 just isn\u2019t worth your time. Diploducus Games seem to be relying on little more than nostalgia as it\u2019s selling point, but when it utterly fails to deliver on gameplay, we can\u2019t recommend this to even the most die-hard platforming fans.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nostalgia is a powerful motivator in gaming. Providing a sense of comfort and familiarity, developers often target this feeling through sequels and remakes, but in the last decade, we\u2019ve seen a greater rise in spiritual successors and that\u2019s been particularly prominent for early 3D platformers, Yooka-Laylee and A Hat In Time being prime examples. Attempting [&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-119148","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119148","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=119148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119148\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}