Justin Nation's Reviews
While the point-and-click adventure genre flagged and faltered a while back I think it coming back more “lean and mean” in indie form is probably the best way for it to find success again. Thimbleweed Park is simply an excellent game and puts the genre’s best foot forward to help find a new generation of fans. With so many great games on the Switch that ramp up the challenge and tension it is a great move in the opposite direction, providing an experience that you can take your time to walk through and savor… while giggling along the way.
SteamWorld Dig 2 is a fantastic game that demonstrates the full potential of the seeds the original had planted. At every phase it is clear that the team behind it has grown in terms of both concepts and skill in implementation. For me playing it and writing this review has also made me reflect on the amazing rate that the indie development scene has matured and turned into the collective juggernaut we are seeing today. Not only are we seeing good games at lower prices, we are often seeing AAA quality and ambition as well. This excites me greatly and I’m looking forward to seeing what these team members, as well as their ambitious contemporaries, have in store for us next!
I would have a difficult time recommending it for the majority of gamers out there.
Quest of Dungeons has consistently surprised me with its adherence to the core roguelike formula, with all of its randomness, while also maintaining a consistent degree of challenge.
Quest of Dungeons, for many people, will initially live or die upon its looks unfortunately and if you enjoy a challenge that plays very well in handheld mode I encourage you to give the gameplay a look. Underneath the old school pixel graphics is a rewarding and challenging roguelike experience, one that will probably bring you closer to the original Rogue than anything else you'll play. The RNG (Random Number Generator) Gods are strong with this title, and though they are often quite cruel when things roll on your side it can be a great feeling. What's great is there is ample room for strategy and success (as well as humiliating failure, granted) as you encounter the biggest challenges in the game. Why settle for your fate when you have an opportunity to change it by being a tricky bastard? Quest of Dungeons has consistently surprised me with its adherence to the core roguelike formula, with all of its randomness, while also maintaining a consistent degree of challenge.
Soldam has really surprised me over the time I’ve played it for review. While I’d started out somewhat skeptical of its very different mechanics once I passed a certain point (assisted by the Challenge mode) I began to more clearly see what it was doing and am fairly impressed by the way it all works. Old puzzle gaming habits are difficult to break and in order to be successful in Soldam you’ll need to develop an entirely new set of tactics for how best to contend with things like garbage pieces specifically. The high-pressure moments as your stacks get closer to the top are where the game shines, and you’ll need to think quickly, adapt, and perhaps have a little luck on your side to get out of it. The good news is that with the color-changing mechanic it is very possible you’ll be able to complete many lines in quick succession with only a few pieces, meaning that you’re never truly sunk unless you just give up. With its very different approach, terrific Versus mode, and fresh strategic challenges Soldam is a worthy contender for puzzle fans!
Summing things up Robonauts has a ton of things going for it in terms of presentation but when it comes to the control and the big picture of content it falls down pretty hard. Perhaps if there had been an advanced control option where I could take on the task of aiming myself I wouldn’t be as disillusioned and I’d spend more time being frustrated with myself not being up to the challenge rather than cursing where the game is choosing to aim at any given time. While the first few levels work and feel great once things get more crowded and chaotic it falls apart. I can appreciate a game that is difficult, challenging you to come back and perform better. When it is asking you to do so with one hand tied behind your back I find it much harder to find my enthusiasm.
Whether or not you decide to take the plunge with Semispheres will really come down to whether you’re in search of a relatively humble but enjoyable collection of puzzles that will occupy most people for several hours depending on your relative skills. Even as a puzzle game fan at no point did it feel like a “been there, done that” situation that can commonly happen with games that have little ambition. In the case of Semispheres it all began with a great base idea and that expanded into something charming and fun that you can enjoy for a while.
While Kingdom: New Lands is hardly a perfect game the experience you get to undertake playing it is fresh and new, blending elements of tower defense with real-time strategy and resource management. As long as you understand the limits of what you can do and you’re willing to explore, experiment, and initially fail quite a lot it offers something unique and challenging to the Switch lineup.
I actually have some familiarity with this game from the mobile space and I can respect it within that market as being reasonably good. Unfortunately, especially where control and complexity come into play, what works well there is generally pretty mediocre on the dedicated gaming hardware of the Switch where the competition has set the bar far higher. If you’re truly bored of Mario Kart and looking for something to kick around with off and on for a while, or are less bothered by floaty controls perhaps it will scratch an itch for you. Nonetheless I would have a difficult time recommending it for the majority of gamers out there.
In its current state I really can’t recommend 36 Fragments of Midnight at all. When it is an endurance game and there’s any control-oriented inconsistency or obstacle all I can imagine is people sinking their time into something that they can’t ultimately control their own success in. With some patching to improve the situation it would at least move the game up a bit, but still nothing would stop it from being merely mediocre. In the end it is what it is and you could spend some quick bursts of time on it and have a little fun, just even in that area there are generally more compelling titles than this one on the Switch.
Even though I’ve settled into what I believe my preferred weapon combination is I’ve continued to be either enticed or forced into changing it up in relation to the gear I find. Generally I’m not a melee guy but when you pick up a melee weapon with explosive damage you can’t help but give it a whirl every now and again. Weapons vary in range, accuracy, splash damage, and more… the fact that every few levels base weapons will begin to be more powerful than the rares you lucked into before means you’ll need to continue to take a hard look at your loadout in order to survive. From run to run I’ve gotten only a few levels in right after getting through the first few bosses so there’s just no knowing what the game will throw at you. With all of this in mind it is easy to recommend NeuroVoider to anyone looking for some satisfying and challenging action.
The question for you when considering Lichtspeer is whether you enjoy being challenged and whether you mind that the game ultimately revolves around getting very good at aiming and firing your speer. If you think you could say yes to both of these items there’s several hours of enjoyment to be had with the game, and you most certainly will be challenged over the course of playing it. If you finish the base stages you’ll be able to go for completing Game+ mode with even more enemies coming your way. If even that isn’t quite enough challenge for you feel free to take on the appropriately-named Rage Quit mode that will forcee you to complete the stages with no checkpoints. I tried and failed spectacularly, there’s always some bastard that breaks through at some point. For the right people I have no doubt Lichtspeer will be a good time, but I also would quickly say it isn’t for everyone.
While RBI Baseball 17 is the first game of its kind on the system I have substantial reservations with recommending it even to die hard fans. It really feels like all of the love and substantial efforts in the game were geared towards making the most of the license, not on making a game that is fun to play. Perhaps against a friend you could both muddle through games on equally bad footing but in general I struggled to get into any kind of meaningful groove no matter what team I chose. My understanding is that this has been a faltering franchise on the whole, it seems like the best thing to do would be to go back to the drawing board and try to find some passion, the game is really a disappointing mess.
The question for you when considering Lichtspeer is whether you enjoy being challenged and whether you mind that the game ultimately revolves around getting very good at aiming and firing your speer...
Overall I appreciate the care and effort that has gone into making the game as visually stunning as it is while also providing an ample puzzle-solving challenge. While from puzzle to puzzle individual results will likely vary, with some solvable on the first try and others requiring you to take a break to return to it later with fresh thoughts, a lot comes down to how each person chooses to approach them. At the end of the day if you immerse yourself in the challenge, and leave your mind free to toy with different potential ways to solve the problems put before you, The Bridge will give you numerous hours of thought-provoking enjoyment.
The truth is, even if the game looks appealing to you in some form, if you have a smartphone of an average size you're far better off getting the game in that space. It's important for the Switch to have a diverse lineup that includes something for everyone. Unfortunately in the case of Boost Beast, even lacking an alternative for a simple and traditional match-3 experience, I have a hard time recommending it to anyone.
I can't generate much excitement for League of Evil when there are so many better games already on the system. Even without a classic Nintendo platformer in the mix the action/platforming genre has strong competition and the list of known titles coming to the Switch just this year will bring even more. I wouldn't say that League of Evil is impossible to enjoy, different things appeal to different people. However, since the control on the Switch continues to feel as loose and imprecise as a mobile game I'd say if you're interested in the game you should first invest in it in that space since it is so inexpensive there. If you really can't get enough of it, want more, and would like to try your hand at creating your own levels then by all means pick it up on the Switch to further explore and expand your experience. League of Evil isn't without merit but in this case it hasn't shaken off enough of its mobile roots to clearly make it worth recommending on the Switch specifically.
While all of the Party Packs have been a load of fun I’d say it is truly a close horse race between Party Packs 2 and 3 for the title of best overall. While I’d thought I’d have given Party Pack 3 the edge before I’d played the entire collection in 2 I’m now thinking that Party Pack 2 may be the best by a nose. While tastes will vary depending on who you are or who you play with I don’t really think there are any outright clunkers in this Pack, though perhaps Bidiots isn’t as fun as I would have liked and Bomb Corp. won’t be a winner for all groups. In the end I’m actually very impressed with them all, would recommend each one of them, and think you’ll need to carefully review the specifics about the games included in each Pack to make the best determination for yourself and your group.
In the end Piczle Lines DX is one of those games where, with the nature of its puzzle challenge, you’re either already interested in it or likely haven’t even bothered to read this far into a review because it doesn’t seem appealing. For puzzle fans there’s very little I can cite as a downside, the challenge ramps up pretty quickly, and you’ll have to use your deductive reasoning to come up with strategies to attack puzzles efficiently and with a solid plan to be successful. Add in the sheer volume of content and you’ll be able to enjoy it for quite some time. Puzzle fans rejoice, the game may be “simple” but it is a winner!