Nindie Spotlight
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If the only issue was the game’s generally lackluster combat a case could be made that everything comes down to tastes but unfortunately the problems don’t really stop there...
I'll just admit it, most simulation games like this simply baffle me in their appeal...
Wheels of Aurelia plays out as a hodge podge of ideas put together in a package that is hard to define a target audience for...
While at a glance it appears to channel the likes of the arcade classic Cabal, it’s sadly not even in the ballpark
Unfortunately, right out of the gate the game’s almost comically crushing difficulty makes this a rhythm game to avoid
OK, so in the indie space there's gotten to be a pretty large gap between experienced but still small teams of developers toiling together and individual and somewhat green developers going solo...
Having played so many games on the Switch it's always important to be mindful of the fact that there are many flavors of games for many different types of gamers...
Ah, licensed games... Though in more recent history they haven't been quite as much of a scourge as in generations past they have a tendency to either be a surprise, making terrific use of the property, or what feels like a thin coat of familiarity to slap on an otherwise lacking experience...
This is one of those titles where I end up having mixed feelings but unfortunately most of it trends towards the negative in this case...
I'm sure anyone who takes on the challenge of making a game and getting it released dreams of their title being truly memorable...
While I don't often use the word shameless to describe games that crib quite a bit of their content nakedly from bigger and more popular titles, in the case of Beasties Id say that the lack of a lasting quality experience beneath the 3-Match Pokemon veneer somewhat earns the distinction...
Even casual gamers will likely find this too simplistic and dull to be of interest
All in all there may be an audience of some sort for Crimson Keep since there’s nothing quite like it on the system. However, a lack of competition doesn’t excuse the shortcomings and ho-hum gameplay it ultimately offers either. It’s a game you can play for a bit, and perhaps get some enjoyment out of if you’re determined, but it’s ultimately just thoroughly unsatisfying and not much fun in any meaningful way.
In the end if you don’t mind the wonky controls and get into the different stages, and the variety they offer, A Gummy’s Life may not be a bad fit. Unfortunately, I’d say there are simply better-implemented games of this kind out there, even if they may lack the variety in stages or even the number of simultaneous players. The flaws here feel very core and fundamental and I’m not positive they can even be patched away, my family and I just didn’t find much joy or excitement in the experience.
To some degree there’s an almost tranquil quality to these sorts of games as they require next to no thinking or even skill. While I can’t imagine banging in the same spot on your touchscreen would have been a great idea the lack of support for using touch controls, combined with the pretty small buttons on the joycon, make playing in handheld mode a bit impractical. Even with a Pro Controller after a while I started to have some small concerns about wearing out the button from playing this excessively. The unfortunate thing is that the rewards are so slow in coming when you mix that with the general lack of skill or structure here it really falls apart as a compelling experience. While there aren’t technical flaws per se with Chicken Assassin: Reloaded I can’t say it makes a lot of sense on this platform and the general novelty of the genre it represents I think has passed its prime as well.
While I can appreciate the effort that went into making Where Are My Friends?, even if you’re thinking a budget title with a couple of different genres has to have some merits I’d still encourage you to exercise caution. Not only are almost all of these genres far better represented by other titles already on Switch (many of them indie titles with fair prices as well), if you really love a given genre it can be painful to endure a bad example of it. Without any particular segment standing out as clearly superior, or remotely on par with the efforts of other titles’ gameplay in similar genres, this is a title I can’t recommend to pretty well anyone.
Overall, while I can appreciate some aspects of what the developers set out to do Defunct seems to be rushed or possibly just given up on. When everything clicks, you get your speed up, and you’re jumping around it has its moments of fun. Unfortunately, those are few and far between with the bulk of your time spent trying to slowly get around, cursing the weird movement and jumping physics, and hitting performance hitches. Perhaps with more work Defunct could have been a better game but in its current state the title can practically double as a one word review.
In the end The Deer God plays out as an odd collection of concepts that just aren’t working together in harmony. Blend this with a spiritual theme that generally seems to be discarded quickly aside from things like when you die with bad karma you can come back as something like a porcupine and it is hard to really put a finger on what the design goals and final messages for the game are. Perhaps it is meant to be profound and leave you to ponder the question yourself further? For me I just decided to move onto something else.
Appropriately named for all of the worst reasons...