Post by nocturnal YL on Jan 14, 2022 13:10:52 GMT -5
Today's topic is game demos, Nintendo Switch Online trials and other games I played on a temporary basis. I've tried a few of them, sometimes to get a taste of what the game is like, and sometimes I already have the game but I just wanted to play it a few days earlier.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
My experience with the Zelda series is very hit-or-miss. I do like a few of the games, but for the most part it's just not my thing. And I never had any success trying 3D Zelda games. Unfortunately, it's still the case here.
Knowing that I wouldn't like the game, I borrowed it from a relative and tried for myself. My main issues with this game is that (1) there's very little sense of progression, and (2) it's too creepy for my taste.
The first one is something I see for a lot of Zelda and Metroid games. Basically, enemies scale just as fast as the player. Got extra hearts? Enemies hit twice as hard. I'm under the impression that the difficulty raises over time. So basically the opposite of RPGs with levelling mechanics.
The second one is that I don't like creepiness where it's not proportionate to the game's atmosphere. Other offenders include the Mad Piano in Mario 64, King Boo's area in Mario 64 DS, the Grave Eclipse in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Deep Woods in Mario Odyssey and the Boo Hunt music in Luigi's Mansion 3 (it has to do with the sudden loudness when other areas have more subdued music).
Anyway, I played the game for 50 hours, got Vah Ruta, solved all puzzles in Vah Medoh and Vah Naboris but didn't fight the Blight Ganons (I kept losing), got some parts done (like Master Kohga), and at that point I lost motivation to keep going.
Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer feat. The Legend of Zelda
The demo of Cadence of Hyrule is quite long relative to its length. It was quite difficult at the start, and it all depends on whether I had the luck to see the 3-space sword on sale. Once I have that, I didn't have to worry about counting odd and even squares to land hits.
I think it's a bit too difficult for me. And playing it without the rhythm seems to defeat the purpose of the game. There are also challenges to defeat all enemies within a certain number of steps, and those seem too difficult for me.
Mad Rat Dead
It's from Nippon Ichi Software. That alone should be enough to describe how crazy it is. It's a rhythm platformer featuring a lab rat that's anything but normal, and I think the platforming part doesn't line up quite well for me to clear the stage in one smooth motion. Or maybe I'm just bad at playing hybrid rhythm games, based on my experience with Dedede's Drum Dash and Cadence of Hyrule. And there are bosses too, and they don't move in set patterns.
After finishing the demo, the game offers to let the player try the demo songs again at a higher difficulty. No thanks.
Disgaea 5
Full game made available on Nintendo Switch Online. This series prides itself on absurd character stats, although this didn't show at the beginning part of the game. It's an over-the-top SRPG that lets the player to go crazy, and killing your own units is definitely encouraged (they can't die; they're demons). Gameplay-wise, it's fun, although I don't quite follow the humour in the dialogs.
There are 4 main series entries (1, 4, 5, 6) and a few more spinoffs on Nintendo Switch. It's one of those time sink game series if you do decide to dive into it.
Avicii Invector
A tribute to the late musician Avicii. It's… not my kind of game. The music is good; the problem is the gameplay. The timing is the tightest among all music games I've tried, and the tunnel format makes it difficult to work out which button inputs should be next, especially in spiral patterns.
Kirby Fighters 2
It's fun while it lasted, and we finally have a Kirby Switch game that runs at 60 frames per second. I think the game looks quite plain in terms of character variety, and the production value is obviously below that of the main series games. It does look good graphically and it seems like the full version will have better replay value, but I don't think the demo does a good job conveying that.
The CPU enemies aren't exactly smart, and in my playthrough Gigavolt helpfully took out the opponents for me in its stage. Nice job, stage hazard.
Pikmin 3 Deluxe
The Pikmin 3 Deluxe demo is a surprisingly good, considering my bias of seeing in-house Nintendo games as being too safe most of the time. It also doesn't feel like the overarching time limit or the aim to make all Pikmin stay alive get in the way of the general enjoyment of the game, at least as far as the demo is concerned. I feel like I have to be on alert to ensure the safety of the Pikmin, without it feeling like an impossible task.
Well, at least in the story mode. The mission mode is a completely different story, where I did struggle. At least I do feel confident that I can make it to the end of the story if I do get this game. Also, it has a rewind feature that allows for the correction of past mistakes, which isn't something I expect it from Nintendo. Good job.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
It stared off easy, and then I realised that there's no way to heal using infinite resources like the fortresses in Fire Emblem Warriors do. And then I hit a mission that involves a live Guardian, and I kept getting hit. I had to rely on the fact that characters who aren't actively player-controlled can't be defeated and used hit-and-run tactics to finally take down the Guardian in 40 minutes.
This game is difficult.
Puyo Puyo Tetris 2
Nothing really special; I just wanted to play the game before I got my copy. If you're interested in a quick game without worrying about the story or any mode besides standard VS or Skill Battle, this is a good free alternative to actually buying the game. There's no save function, though.
Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan Encore
Another Nintendo Switch Online trial game. One of the many NAMCO Encore games. Mojipittan was an old PS2 word puzzle game that got newer versions on systems like Wii and DS with an expanded word list, and the newest version on PS4 and Switch features newer words like Reiwa.
In this game, you put hiragana characters on the board. If it forms 2-9 character words, it's a valid placement and you get score. The game ends when a stated criterion is met, so to get a high score you need to avoid fulfilling that criterion until you're ready to end the game. Certain boards are NAMCO-themed and can accept game-specific terms as valid words.
I'm nowhere nearly as good at the Japanese vocabulary to play this game effectively. I'd say the word list is weird though. BANNAMU (short for BANDAI NAMCO) is not a valid word, but AIMASU (short for THE iDOLM@STER) is. What.
AHEN (opium) is not a valid word. Isoroku Yamamoto is.
BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! for Nintendo Switch
It's a mobile rhythm game that gets ported to Nintendo Switch. So what happens to the controls? Map each segment to a button? Use motion controls?
If your answer is "anything can be hit with any of the A, B, X, Y, up, down, left or right button", congratulations! Any button can be used to hit normal notes, and flick notes use any of the L, R, ZL and ZR buttons. There's also a Joy-Con mode that maps normal notes to shaking the Joy-Cons.
If you think this makes the game easy, well… maybe you're right. I don't know. I only ever got full combo once, and it's on the Normal difficulty. The thing is, the path the notes appear is shown at an angle, so I can't easily tell the timing of the button presses. I know this is standard for mobile rhythm games, but coming from a background of 2D rhythm game charts, this alone is enough to throw me off.
Also, the demo has no save feature and there's no way to access the menu other than the song selection screen. The whole thing doesn't really give me a good impression.
WarioWare: Get It Together!
Now this is a good demo. It contains 10 of the microgames, and after each attempt the player is given a new crew member to a maximum of 6. After the 3rd attempt, the player is given the option to use all 6 members, making this a relatively rich demo for a short game. This exact configuration isn't in the full version, and there are people attempting high score in the demo specifically.
BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light
Finishing the demo unlocks items in the full game, so here we go!
There are two parts of the demo: the beginning of the game and somewhere in the middle of the story. Both are incredibly long, but since this is Gust we're talking about, it's also just a small fraction of the full game.
Some people describe this game as modern Atelier, and I think that's half-accurate. It has a survival-themed, not 100% bright story*, a semi-real-time combat system, and an item creation system which is similar, but without the uniqueness of individual items.
I don't know what the story is really about yet, and I get the feeling that this will be a rather slow game. I probably won't be able to finish the full version by the time Sophie 2 comes out.
*More than 25 years ago, Gust once considered giving a darker theme to Atelier Marie and ultimately decided against it. That said, some Atelier series entries do have darker elements.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
My experience with the Zelda series is very hit-or-miss. I do like a few of the games, but for the most part it's just not my thing. And I never had any success trying 3D Zelda games. Unfortunately, it's still the case here.
Knowing that I wouldn't like the game, I borrowed it from a relative and tried for myself. My main issues with this game is that (1) there's very little sense of progression, and (2) it's too creepy for my taste.
The first one is something I see for a lot of Zelda and Metroid games. Basically, enemies scale just as fast as the player. Got extra hearts? Enemies hit twice as hard. I'm under the impression that the difficulty raises over time. So basically the opposite of RPGs with levelling mechanics.
The second one is that I don't like creepiness where it's not proportionate to the game's atmosphere. Other offenders include the Mad Piano in Mario 64, King Boo's area in Mario 64 DS, the Grave Eclipse in Golden Sun: Dark Dawn, Deep Woods in Mario Odyssey and the Boo Hunt music in Luigi's Mansion 3 (it has to do with the sudden loudness when other areas have more subdued music).
Anyway, I played the game for 50 hours, got Vah Ruta, solved all puzzles in Vah Medoh and Vah Naboris but didn't fight the Blight Ganons (I kept losing), got some parts done (like Master Kohga), and at that point I lost motivation to keep going.
Cadence of Hyrule: Crypt of the Necrodancer feat. The Legend of Zelda
The demo of Cadence of Hyrule is quite long relative to its length. It was quite difficult at the start, and it all depends on whether I had the luck to see the 3-space sword on sale. Once I have that, I didn't have to worry about counting odd and even squares to land hits.
I think it's a bit too difficult for me. And playing it without the rhythm seems to defeat the purpose of the game. There are also challenges to defeat all enemies within a certain number of steps, and those seem too difficult for me.
Mad Rat Dead
It's from Nippon Ichi Software. That alone should be enough to describe how crazy it is. It's a rhythm platformer featuring a lab rat that's anything but normal, and I think the platforming part doesn't line up quite well for me to clear the stage in one smooth motion. Or maybe I'm just bad at playing hybrid rhythm games, based on my experience with Dedede's Drum Dash and Cadence of Hyrule. And there are bosses too, and they don't move in set patterns.
After finishing the demo, the game offers to let the player try the demo songs again at a higher difficulty. No thanks.
Disgaea 5
Full game made available on Nintendo Switch Online. This series prides itself on absurd character stats, although this didn't show at the beginning part of the game. It's an over-the-top SRPG that lets the player to go crazy, and killing your own units is definitely encouraged (they can't die; they're demons). Gameplay-wise, it's fun, although I don't quite follow the humour in the dialogs.
There are 4 main series entries (1, 4, 5, 6) and a few more spinoffs on Nintendo Switch. It's one of those time sink game series if you do decide to dive into it.
Avicii Invector
A tribute to the late musician Avicii. It's… not my kind of game. The music is good; the problem is the gameplay. The timing is the tightest among all music games I've tried, and the tunnel format makes it difficult to work out which button inputs should be next, especially in spiral patterns.
Kirby Fighters 2
It's fun while it lasted, and we finally have a Kirby Switch game that runs at 60 frames per second. I think the game looks quite plain in terms of character variety, and the production value is obviously below that of the main series games. It does look good graphically and it seems like the full version will have better replay value, but I don't think the demo does a good job conveying that.
The CPU enemies aren't exactly smart, and in my playthrough Gigavolt helpfully took out the opponents for me in its stage. Nice job, stage hazard.
Pikmin 3 Deluxe
The Pikmin 3 Deluxe demo is a surprisingly good, considering my bias of seeing in-house Nintendo games as being too safe most of the time. It also doesn't feel like the overarching time limit or the aim to make all Pikmin stay alive get in the way of the general enjoyment of the game, at least as far as the demo is concerned. I feel like I have to be on alert to ensure the safety of the Pikmin, without it feeling like an impossible task.
Well, at least in the story mode. The mission mode is a completely different story, where I did struggle. At least I do feel confident that I can make it to the end of the story if I do get this game. Also, it has a rewind feature that allows for the correction of past mistakes, which isn't something I expect it from Nintendo. Good job.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity
It stared off easy, and then I realised that there's no way to heal using infinite resources like the fortresses in Fire Emblem Warriors do. And then I hit a mission that involves a live Guardian, and I kept getting hit. I had to rely on the fact that characters who aren't actively player-controlled can't be defeated and used hit-and-run tactics to finally take down the Guardian in 40 minutes.
This game is difficult.
Puyo Puyo Tetris 2
Nothing really special; I just wanted to play the game before I got my copy. If you're interested in a quick game without worrying about the story or any mode besides standard VS or Skill Battle, this is a good free alternative to actually buying the game. There's no save function, though.
Kotoba no Puzzle: Mojipittan Encore
Another Nintendo Switch Online trial game. One of the many NAMCO Encore games. Mojipittan was an old PS2 word puzzle game that got newer versions on systems like Wii and DS with an expanded word list, and the newest version on PS4 and Switch features newer words like Reiwa.
In this game, you put hiragana characters on the board. If it forms 2-9 character words, it's a valid placement and you get score. The game ends when a stated criterion is met, so to get a high score you need to avoid fulfilling that criterion until you're ready to end the game. Certain boards are NAMCO-themed and can accept game-specific terms as valid words.
I'm nowhere nearly as good at the Japanese vocabulary to play this game effectively. I'd say the word list is weird though. BANNAMU (short for BANDAI NAMCO) is not a valid word, but AIMASU (short for THE iDOLM@STER) is. What.
AHEN (opium) is not a valid word. Isoroku Yamamoto is.
BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! for Nintendo Switch
It's a mobile rhythm game that gets ported to Nintendo Switch. So what happens to the controls? Map each segment to a button? Use motion controls?
If your answer is "anything can be hit with any of the A, B, X, Y, up, down, left or right button", congratulations! Any button can be used to hit normal notes, and flick notes use any of the L, R, ZL and ZR buttons. There's also a Joy-Con mode that maps normal notes to shaking the Joy-Cons.
If you think this makes the game easy, well… maybe you're right. I don't know. I only ever got full combo once, and it's on the Normal difficulty. The thing is, the path the notes appear is shown at an angle, so I can't easily tell the timing of the button presses. I know this is standard for mobile rhythm games, but coming from a background of 2D rhythm game charts, this alone is enough to throw me off.
Also, the demo has no save feature and there's no way to access the menu other than the song selection screen. The whole thing doesn't really give me a good impression.
WarioWare: Get It Together!
Now this is a good demo. It contains 10 of the microgames, and after each attempt the player is given a new crew member to a maximum of 6. After the 3rd attempt, the player is given the option to use all 6 members, making this a relatively rich demo for a short game. This exact configuration isn't in the full version, and there are people attempting high score in the demo specifically.
BLUE REFLECTION: Second Light
Finishing the demo unlocks items in the full game, so here we go!
There are two parts of the demo: the beginning of the game and somewhere in the middle of the story. Both are incredibly long, but since this is Gust we're talking about, it's also just a small fraction of the full game.
Some people describe this game as modern Atelier, and I think that's half-accurate. It has a survival-themed, not 100% bright story*, a semi-real-time combat system, and an item creation system which is similar, but without the uniqueness of individual items.
I don't know what the story is really about yet, and I get the feeling that this will be a rather slow game. I probably won't be able to finish the full version by the time Sophie 2 comes out.
*More than 25 years ago, Gust once considered giving a darker theme to Atelier Marie and ultimately decided against it. That said, some Atelier series entries do have darker elements.
