Justin Nation's Reviews
Unfortunately, while Neon Junctions does a good job of catching your attention with its looks its gameplay and some performance issues don't do a great job of keeping it...
The idea is simple enough in principle, you’ll use a slider that you can see at the bottom of the screen to choose a number that represents how high or low your ship will fly...
Where the problems begin is that within the confines of the game itself there’s pretty well no direction, hints, or clues to what it is you’ll need to do...
Every 10 levels you’ll then face a more formidable foe, and they’ll have unique attacks for you to deal with...
Of course there’s the classic mode, where everyone has a card and can take a reasonable amount of time to identify whether or not they have the number that has been called on their card...
On top of the somewhat anemic gameplay there are just so many things in the game that same half-baked...
Those hoping for even a sliver of Cooking Mama-esque joy will quickly have their hopes crushed
Sure, it’s a budget game just about anyone could play… but it also seems better suited to your phone if you’d play it at all
With a continuous attempt to further monetize itself, minimal gameplay, and an often mean-spirited tone, skip this dessert
What’s really weird is the depth of mobile roots this game has, with a wide variety of unlockable characters to play as or weird balls to use. I can’t imagine the majority of people out there would unlock even a fraction of what’s available before giving up on this title. Just a shred of nuance or control would have been appreciated, too many times I was able to hit my opponent with ice or something else to stop them only to then have my player hit the ball right to them. Simplicity can be good and even fun but I think it was a terrible choice here, at least at this extreme degree for a sport where I have a minimum set of expectations.
At its base there are definitely things about Next Up Hero that make sense and work. Its art style and general flow of gameplay aren’t bad, and the variety of character attacks are interesting and worth trying out to see what suits you. Unfortunately, it’s pretty much everything from that point on that falls apart. Truly, this feels like a collection of game ideas thrown together in the same basket without the care to get any of it to be cohesive. Progression is slow, there are entire modes for levels that plain aren’t fun and make no sense (including one where you take damage for collecting prestige points, pretty well guaranteeing your melee fighter is screwed as they fall when an enemy dies), enemy damage is all over the place, and the story feels more like an excuse to have some out of synch character art to include in the package than anything else. I would like to enjoy it for what it does right, but the avalanche of issues it has make it seem like it wasn’t ready for release.
This is absolutely one of those games where I have to question who the target audience was meant to be. There’s no doubt it is friendly to newcomers since there’s very little to understand, but as an introduction to the fighting game genre it would also seem amazingly boring. It could be argued hardcore fighting fans could get a kick out of it, finding ways to eke out every bit of technique possible… but with no ability to be down and turn the tide or anything else exciting that is normally associated with competitive fighting games I can’t see that being likely either. Moreso than almost any other title I’ve reviewed One Strike simply is what it is… and that’s a one-dimensional, bare bones fighting game that offers little to thoroughly enjoy.
Regardless of the amount of total content in the game the fact is that if it feels like a chore to get to the bulk of it, and the overall play isn’t satisfying, it really drains all enthusiasm out of the process. Spartan has some glimmers of hope here and there but the overall experience simply comes up short through a combination of shortcomings. If you’re out to grind through an experience for the sake of saying you did it you may find some appeal but for the vast majority of people out there the Switch has far better offerings than this in the same price range.
Even without the very prevalent and apparent framerate issues Snow Moto Racing Freedom has on the Switch I think it struggles to be compelling. If you’re really into smowmobiles it’s possible your interest could be higher but treating it merely as an option for a racing game on the platform its novelty doesn’t compensate for the elements it is missing. Then open spaces are generally nice but don’t demand repeated play and the closed courses are technically challenging but not generally very fun either. As a whole these problems make it difficult to recommend.
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.
If you’re a fan of this style of gameplay since it has a very affordable asking price it may not be a bad match. Simply understand it is what it is, nothing less and nothing more. If this type of puzzle isn’t your thing it absolutely will do nothing to change your mind. It works, but it is a pretty dull affair all around… just at a budget price.
It may just take some tweaks but collisions are inevitable in the game and can royally screw you up, more than I'd expect. This can detract from some of the fun of the tracks that overlap themselves and that's a shame. While there are some positives to be had in the game it's also quirky enough that it's tough to recommend.
Creepy dolls, crying babies, and a general sense of creepiness can’t compensate for generally lackluster play
Ugh, there are just some games that you can't understand being released on Switch...