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The Ambassador didn’t really click with me much at all. While it did have some cool time manipulation mechanics and controlled pretty well for a twin-stick shooter, it didn’t offer much of anything substantial that managed to engage me, and ultimately it just wore out rather quickly.
Regardless, the gameplay is just too dull and boring for me to keep my interest, and when the other half of the game (the story sequences) are so agonizing that I found myself skipping through some and literally missing nothing when going back to check if I missed anyway, that’s not a good sign of a fun game at all, regardless of platform.
Habroxia 2 was a decent little shooter with an interesting control scheme. The powerups were fun to mess around with, the boss fights were enjoyable, and the levels are just generally OK, but overall I never felt any sort of hook to this shooter: not even in the scorechasing aspect, despite the game encouraging you to improve your accuracy and build up combos, I just never felt any sort of incentive or addictive rush to do so, and in general the game felt more like a fun ride rather than a super engrossing, must-play shooter, especially with the irritating difficulty spikes and credit grinding.
So at the end of it all, this is really only a game I can recommend if you don’t mind a typical action romp with a bit of strategy to it, and if you don’t mind the very, very repetitive nature you’ll be dealing with along the way. Some aspects of the management portions definitely remind me a bit of some older games such as the Princess Maker series, but otherwise Princess Guide ended up being rather uninteresting.
By far the aspect that ruined this experience for me the most though, was the godawful performance on Switch. If you must play this game on this console, play on docked, as you’ll have at least some enjoyment out of it, even if the dips and hitches will still drive you insane, but playing this in handheld mode/on a lite is just asking for punishment and pain beyond your wildest imagination.
Collapsed is a very dull roguelike, with a very high learning curve and performance issues that making playing this (at least in handheld) a lot more frustrating than it should be, while also lacking the magic that make other roguelike games so good. The controls are still very comfy and the action is fine, but there’s really no reason to pick this one up over the many, better roguelikes for less money due to the difficulty balancing and framerate problems, unless you’re really not one to mind attempting things tons and tons of times just to clear one world, and having to grind a lot as a result.
The inconsistent difficulty and excessive visual effects just don’t lead to a good game, and really I can’t recommend this game at all, especially for the crazy $13 price. Literally the only reason this game would be worth checking out is due to the trippy shock value aspects, and only if you’re a hardcore fan of that stuff willing to look over the clunky maze gameplay surrounding this one strange adventure.
One Word by Powgi is yet another crossword game from Lightwood, and while the one word per board focus may seem great for pick up and play, unfortunately I couldn’t say they felt that different from your typical crossword puzzle, especially when the boards vary wildly in size and thus, the difficulty of the puzzles is all over the place. It’s fine for crossword fans wanting every possible puzzle imaginable, but otherwise, you’re better off just getting one of the more content-packed collections from lightwood instead.
While I really wanted to like 1993 more than I did, I can’t help but feel some aspects of the game didn’t age that well, or weren’t polished up as much as they should have been. The graphics are outstanding, and while the sound is lackluster, it still fits the Amiga vibe very well. But the stages are just so inconsistent in how fun they are to play, that I can’t help but feel there should have been more spice to this experience.
Deleveled is a paint by numbers, minimalist platformer, entering a swamped genre with not much on offer. The controls are fine, the puzzles are pretty tricky, and the concept is fine, but there really isn’t that much to write home about with Deleveled.
For three dollars, Get 10 Quest should have been a great portable addition to the Switch’s catalogue, but while the core concept is decent, it doesn’t do too much besides the bare minimum. The puzzle mode is a decent addition for a tiny bit of replay value, but the lack of anything else besides it and the endless mode, especially one without leaderboards, makes Get 10 Quest a dull puzzler you’re not likely to boot up to fill an addictive craving.
Reed is a fun, fast-paced platformer with enjoyable level design, but the content just isn’t there. While Gravity Duck sports more levels, it’s far more boring and dull, not benefitting from the good level design found here. On the other hand, even the hidden secrets in Reed aren’t enough to make this a replayable experience, so while it’s a fun romp that controls very well, it’s more of a one-and-done you’re probably better off enjoying on sale.
In conclusion, Toy Tanks is an OK arena action game. What kills most of the fun in this game are the strange controls, with nothing that’s really practical. Thus, Toy Tanks just feels a lot more clunky and complicated than a game like this has every right to be, but if you can somehow get over the crazy hurdle of this game’s control schemes, then you do have a decent, sixty-level experience to blast through, along with a goofy two player battle mode. So at the end of the day, Toy Tanks isn’t a bad game, just a very clunky one with some weird learning curves, leaving a middle of the road experience in its place.
For now, 140 just felt average, middle of the road. It all works well, but feels like stuff I’ve seen done a thousand times before, but better, with games such as Kuso having simplicity while also being a lot more polished and charming. Not a bad pick for a platformer, but not a unique one either.
At the end of the day, the game is still very barebones and doesn’t offer much in terms of variety. Considering how clunky Access feels to control thanks to the DS4 touchpad and buttons, you’re also better off buying this game on a touch-compatible device if you have that option, and once you beat all the puzzles, there’s really little reason to go back, since the platinum unlocks after you do them all. For $5, it’s fine, but you’d probably enjoy a brainteaser like this a bit more elsewhere.
Code Shifter is unfortunately, a big bag of missed potential. On one side, you have some of the best chiptune remixes to grace any video game, and it’s clear Arc gave it their all to represent each character in their own special way, nailing the crossover aspect in that regard. But on the other hand, the majority of the game sports this absolutely dull art style that honestly feels as if it belonged to another game before Arc characters were thrown in at the later stages of development. Combine that with some confusing design decisions such as the lack of D-Pad support, character themes getting interrupted by bosses, to even the 8-bit minigame lacking so much as stage, music, or CPU select options, and you have a mess of a crossover that barely feels like one, and isn’t even as fully realized as it easily could have been.
Fairy Fencer F is still a pretty decent RPG, containing a lot of the same fun mechanics that make quite a bit of the other Idea Factory RPGs work so well. However, it all comes down to the gameplay loop in the end, and unfortunately, while the combat is great fun and exploration is fine, the repetitive nature of traversing simplistic dungeons over and over again is just a big bore, as even with the boosters and free DLC the game lets you use to power through the story if you so desire, it still feels like you’re just going in boring circles and not doing much of anything, even as you recruit new party members, gain access to alchemy and sidequests, and have lots to do. When it just feels like busy work, it’s tough to recommend this older game over one of IF’s newer RPGS.
Considering how this version is also double the pricepoint of the original Steam version for some baffling reason, I think you should definitely wait for the patch and maybe even a sale on this one if you’re remotely interested. You can have a decent enough time once you’re able to get past all this, but it’s still not an excuse for how the port came out this way, especially since this game has a lot of great ideas buried within.
Unfortunately, that aspect combined with a very slow paced game just leaves this as an RPG you’re better off skipping in favor of higher quality RPGs on the same store.
Mercenaries Saga Chronicles is a collection of games I just couldn’t get into. Within a few missions in each game, I’d find the game’s awful pacing and clunky controls to be a big frustration, and each time I would move onto the next game, hoping they would be better and improve on the prior installment with some handy quality of life features, I would be disappointed and bored to death. Repeat once more, and that’s my experience with Mercenary Saga Chronicles.