Super Meat Boy Forever [Nindie Choice] - Fans of one of the OG teeth-gnashing platforming challenges from the early indie days have been waiting for a number of years to see Meat Boy make his triumphant (and brutally tough) return, and with the arrival of Forever… there’ll be mixed reactions?!? This may not be the sequel everyone was hoping for as the style of play has been changed completely, even if the degree of difficulty hasn’t subsided at all. Where before you had full control over Meat Boy (or any of his unlocked contemporaries) to work through loads of platforming challenges, this new entry in the series has taken on a form more consistent with an endless runner. There are positives as well as pitfalls to this choice, with the streamlining of what you have to worry about possibly making the experience more accessible but leaving the experience mostly with very picky timing on everything you do in its place. Since you’re unable to freely move many levels also take on more of a puzzle-like feel as you try to work out your path (hopefully picking up pacifiers along the way and maybe finding hidden secrets) since you’ll simply die if you get to the edge of the screen and turning isn’t always something you can pull off wherever you’d like. The big upside is that every time you play through the levels are bound to lay themselves out differently, giving the game immense replay value, but whether or not you’re down for the new format that may have come at a high price for your enjoyment or perhaps your expectations.
Double Dragon: Neon - The Double Dragon name is revered for good
reason since the series has been around since the early days and has also
had some great conversions onto many home systems over the years. Neon is
obviously an attempt to reignite and modernize this venerated franchise,
though also being sure to celebrate the more ridiculous aspects of the
decade that it spawned from. The Switch has seen a real beat-em-up
renaissance emerge since launch and while this over-the-top brawler has its
moments not all comparisons to its contemporaries on the eShop are
favorable. For me the most notable issue is just the sluggishness of your
character’s movements and attacks, while perhaps it’s consistent in general
feel with the original by modern standards it feels like you’re moving
through molasses. If you consider the modern genre to be too chaotic and
rapid-fire this may actually be a plus, but for me if the game could be
played between 1.25x and 1.5x faster I’d enjoy it more. There’s certainly no
lack of personality here, and your ability to customize your characters
stats and specials to suit your tastes is a nice touch, but in terms of core
play Neon simply feels behind the times in what’s become quite a competitive
space on the Switch.
Wingspan - Card-based strategy titles have been coming to the Switch
in a pretty steady stream but I don’t think there have been any quite like
Wingspan. With an ornithological focus, everything you do in this title
revolves around birds, just be sure to be ready to do quite a bit of reading
and experimentation to truly get up to speed. Turns are spent gathering
various types of feed, laying eggs, or playing the bird cards in your hand,
with your focus often being on working out how best to chain your various
bonuses to maximize every turn. Since you’ll be playing against a CPU
competitor taking a look at what may be going on with them won’t be a bad
thought, and opportunities may arise with predatory birds in your deck to
capitalize even on actions they take. Careful and thoughtful planning and a
bit of luck can go a long way to help you succeed in this game, and that can
be rewarding when everything comes together, but whether or not the
experience will be something for everyone is a fair question.
Elliot - When it comes to traditional platformers from top to bottom
the Switch tends to have you covered. So when a title like Elliot comes
along, not really having any major faults but also not doing anything that’s
going to differentiate it from a host of similar genre titles it’s hard to
know quite what to say. The degree of difficulty here is higher than the
norm, especially if you’re looking to pick up stretch goal challenge items
that are peppered around in tough places, but there’s just something missing
in terms of personality or perhaps creativity that fails to make it
memorable, aside from perhaps its budget price, but even in that category
there’s some more worthy competition.
Fatal Fury: First Contact - Fans of fighting games who also happen to
have fond memories of playing their favorite series in handheld form may get
a kick out of this one. The Neo Geo Pocket conversions may be an acquired
taste since, by their nature, they were being made on more limited hardware
but there are those like this one that shine a little brighter than the
rest. Once you get over the somewhat slow response of your fighters (it’s
minor but hard not to notice, I’d imagine this is consistent with the
original though) you’ll find that the move set for each character is pretty
deep and generally easy to execute even with only the two buttons supported.
Depth of challenge may be a bit more of an issue, depending on your level of
skill, but if you’ve got some pocket-sized retro nostalgia it’s among the
better conversions they’ve made.
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