Nintendo Switch

26
Nov
2017
Solomon Rambles About Dying Cubes

Solomon Rambles About Dying Cubes

Death Squared

Death Shared

I am fortunate to have a dedicated Player 2 in my life.  Money can buy you a video game system, controllers, and games.  It can also buy you a Player 2, but that’s expensive and frowned upon.  For those of you who don’t have a gaming partner and aren’t interested in the underground gaming slave market, your gaming life is somewhat stunted.  Some games (like the Jackbox Party Packs) are almost entirely worthless to you.  Other games (like Overcooked! and Snipperclips) are co-op experiences but have options play alone.  You can enjoy them by yourself in the same way you can enjoy a dinner for two by yourself:  full of shame and feeling like this isn’t how it’s supposed to be.

DS 4Death Squared targets co-op gamers but is perfectly functional as a single-player affair.  Because most puzzles involve taking turns to move, controlling both characters yourself doesn’t feel overwhelming or unintuitive.  Although levels are inventive and can challenge you to think abstractly to find solutions, few puzzles are so difficult that you need a second player to offer ideas.  Essentially, a single player can enjoy Death Squared’s gameplay, but the game’s humor and unpredictable deaths are best enjoyed with others.

What is it?

Death Squared’s Story Mode focuses on the trials of two robotic cubes.  They are subjected to test after test (80 in all) in which they find themselves on suspended platforms hanging above bottomless abysses.  These stages are usually small enough to fit onscreen without the camera moving, but they are littered with traps to obliterate the blocky heroes.  A test is passed once each box simultaneously places itself on a panel of its color.

Opposite colors will often be your robots’ downfall.  While a red laser won’t hurt the red cube, it most certainly will explode the blue one.  A wall of red, transparent cubes can be impassable to blue but pose no obstacle to red.  Conversely, a red pathway is a safe bridge for blue but no different from dead space to red.  Most stages are dynamic, with each pressed button and each pushed block altering the structure of the level.  Sometimes these changes open a new path for you; other times, they trigger spikes to impale a character or catapult another bot off the level entirely.  Death is natural and expected as trial-and-error plays a part in finding the solution to a level.

DS 2

As you progress through levels, David (a lowly AI tester) and Iris (his A.I. partner/supervisor) provide commentary, criticizing or commending your progress or delving into humorous stories about computer updates/David’s mother.  At times, David will even mess with the testing’s programming, thus altering how you play or what you may encounter.  Unfortunately, these two are not present in Death Squared’s 40 four-player stages (Party Mode) or 30 extra hard Vault levels.  These “bonus” levels follow the same format as the main game, but their testers presumably are mute compared to Iris and David.

What’s good?

  1. The humor is superb. David and Iris (both played by the fantastic Rice Pirate) offer some lovely banter.  David is—in a word—a douchebag but a lovable, pathetic one whereas Iris is your sarcastic, GLaDOS knock-off who provides a good foil to David.  Their commentary primarily accompanies your progress through levels, but you will get the occasional, repeated quips based on your deaths, movements, and successes. Your deaths add to the humor as well because your demises are frequently unexpected, creative, or caused by a dickhead friend.
  2. The puzzles offer a balanced level of difficulty.  Apart from a handful of levels, you will typically figure out a solution after a few minutes of dying or staring at the level.  The Vault levels pose the greatest challenge, but if a dunce like me can solve them, so can you. You will die plenty of times, and the game will flaunt your failings by keeping track of them with a counter, but it’s okay to die.  It’s part of life and helps you solve problems.

Note: Solomon does not endorse dying in real life to solve problems.

DS 3

  1. Death Squared offers a lot of content without overstaying its welcome, which is quite amazing given the simplicity of the game. The control stick is all you need to move your characters and solve all levels, and there are few gimmicks introduced throughout the course of the game.  Still, the developers managed to make most stages feel unique even given these few tools.

What’s bad?

  1. Without David and Iris, the Party and Vault levels are a little less enjoyable. Their commentary serves as an incentive for completing levels, so the “one more level” mentality found in the main mode isn’t quite as strong for Vault or Party.  As I have stated, the levels, themselves, can still be rewarding, but the voice-acting is what propels this game from good to great, and without it, you’re playing “good,” not “great.”
  2. Party Mode does not quite live up to the two-player levels. For a solo player, Party Mode is a little overwhelming as you switch between all four robots.  With a team of four players, gaming can be raucous fun, but gameplay does feel slowed down.  With four players, stages are routinely filled with more obstacles and player interactions, necessitating a more methodical pace to ensure everyone lives and hits each step of the puzzle correctly.  Some play groups may enjoy scratching each other’s heads to figure out the solution, but for others, the process may be too laborious to justify the payoff.
  3. There is only one stage theme. The graphics are simple and clean, but no matter what level you’re on, you’ll have the same dark blue backdrop with the same gray blocks suspended over the same black nothingness.  At times, depth is a little hard to gauge as well.

DS 1

What’s the verdict?

For those looking for a competent puzzle game, Death Squared provides, be it for one player or four.  The game introduces a simple set of rules and creates devious problems based on these basic rules, a characteristic most good puzzle games have.  However, Death Squared’s humor boosts the overall game’s quality, separating it from all the other good but forgettable puzzle affairs.  Solitary gamers can certainly enjoy the experience, but the hilarity is truly something you should share with someone else.  Find another human being, get to know them, love them even, and then revel when you vindictively kill them for messing up in-game.  This is the joy only found in comradery.

Arbitrary Statistics:

  • Score: 8
  • Time Played: Over 5 hours
  • Number of Players: 1-4
  • Games Like It on Switch: Snipperclips, The Bridge

Scoring Policy

Posted by Solomon Rambling in Review
19
Nov
2017
Solomon Rambles About Calamari

Solomon Rambles About Calamari

Splatoon 2

A Game for Squidbags

Although not heavily publicized, it is common knowledge that Nintendo is run by an advanced species of aliens. These peaceful aliens happen to be fascinated by the concept of human pleasure. For over a century, they have studied how to best invoke joy in humanity, starting out with hanafuda cards, briefly dabbling in love hotels, then testing different ventures, before finally settling on video games. Because of their heightened intelligence, they have produced numerous remarkable innovations complemented by stellar games. Alas, despite their years of research and genius, these Nintendaliens often fail to remember basic human concepts.

Nintendo’s gaming history is riddled with their mistakes. The N64’s controller was innovative for emphasizing analogue control and for offering a rumble feature, but the Nintendaliens failed to remember that humans have two hands, not three, rendering the three-prong controller awkward at times. The Virtual Boy was ahead of its time for adventuring into 3-D territory, but unfortunately, Nintendo overlooked the fact that the red/black graphics – while pleasing to their compound eyes – induced bleeding in human eyes. Nintendo’s struggles with online features serve as another example: because WiFi causes instantaneous seizures for Nintendaliens, their ability to roll out anything remotely resembling a competent online plan has been hampered by continuous job site casualties.

Splatoon 5

Splatoon 2 stands as a quintessential example of both Nintendo’s genius and absurdly alien absent-mindedness. Like any of Nintendo’s long-running franchises, Splatoon 2 presents genre-defining entertainment wrapped in character and charm. It seduces gamers of all types and serves as a strong reason to purchase a Switch. It also features some of the most maddeningly-stupid mechanics in modern video games, some so detrimental, you cannot fathom a clear-headed human could create them.

What is it?

Splatoon 2 is a third-person shooter the same way a platypus is a mammal. Both theoretically fit their respective classifications, but no one looks at Splatoon and says, “Hey, it’s like Gears of War,” just like no one looks at those venomous, duck-billed, egg-laying, milk-sweating creatures and thinks, “That is just like my cat.”  Or maybe you do.  I don’t understand cats.

In Splatoon, you are an “inkling,” a species of hipster kids who can change into squids at will. You battle against other inklings in teams of four, using weapons which spew forth brightly-colored ink to paint the battlefield and drown your opponents. Weapons range from your standard guns, snipers, and shotguns to your wackier household appliances like buckets, paint rollers, and ink brushes.  Each weapon has its own sub-weapon (typically variations of grenades) and a special, which can be air strikes, massive lasers, temporary armor, or other strange devices.

In a single battle, you will transition quickly between your kid and squid forms.  In kid form, you can unleash your weapons to ink the field and wipe out opponents.  However, your squid form can swim in your ink much faster than your biped counterpart and jump higher.  Your squid can also hide in said ink where it will replenish your ink reserves.

Splatoon 2

Online multiplayer is at the heart of Splatoon 2 and offers five modes. Turf War (the game’s “casual mode,” offered 24/7) challenges two teams of four to mark a greater percentage of the stage with their colored inks in three minutes. Once you win games and reach rank five, you will have access to Salmon Run (available in 12-hour blocks every other day or so) which is a horde mode of sorts in which you and three others fight off various mutated salmanoid creatures and steal their eggs for profit. After hitting rank 10, you are exposed to the true competitive modes: Rainmaker, Tower Control, and Splat Zones. These modes rotate every two hours and are Splatoon’s take on Capture the Flag, King of the Hill, and Domination, respectively.

Outside of online multiplayer, a single-player campaign can occupy you for a handful of hours as you battle the Octarian Empire (composed of octopi creatures because the Splatoon world is rife with racism) across 32 stages. Most levels will find you running and gunning while navigating minor platforming areas. Regarding local single-console multiplayer, there isn’t one. Nintendo has scrapped the largely pointless local multilayer mode found in the original Splatoon, and in its place, you can host local matches with your friends who also have $360 to buy a Switch and Splatoon 2.

What’s good?

  1. Nintendo has created a genuinely fun and unique experience. Morphing from squid to kid is seamless and makes your firefights fluid and dynamic. Weapons, gear, and game modes can change gameplay drastically, encouraging you to experiment with new load outs. For those worried about Splatoon being a kiddie version of typical shooters, Splatoon’s cutesy design belies its depth; considerable strategy and skill are needed to win reliably. The gameplay, itself, is absurdly enjoyable no matter the game mode, from Splat Zones to Salmon Run to Turf War to not Rainmaker.
  2. Splatoon’s environment and tone are infectiously gleeful and engaging. Inkopolis serves as the world’s hub where inklings gather to show off their outfits and personalized messages (a remnant of the Wii U’s Miiverse). You buy gear and weapons from quirky shops and their equally strange owners, each attempting their best Portlander impression. Additionally, every month, Nintendo launches a Splatfest with the entire Inkopolis plaza overhauled with decorations and arranged as a concert venue. It’s all so immersive that you, too, will be questioning if you’re a squid or a kid.
  3. For fans of Splatoon 1, there are enough changes to justify a purchase. For you, Splatoon 2 will feel more like a massive expansion pack than a sequel, which may be all you need if you enjoyed the original. Salmon Run is just as strong as the original four multilayer modes, and Tower Control has been improved through the introduction of checkpoints. These checkpoints stop rounds from being unfairly dominated by one team with a strong start, a problem still present in Rainmaker.

Splatoon 1

What’s bad?

  1. The single player campaign feels less inspired and dynamic than the original’s offering. Many assets are reused (from music to enemies to gimmicks); levels seem to drag on longer than necessary; and locating the levels in the campaign’s hub is a chore. The overall experience is still enjoyable but can be skipped over entirely.
  2. Playing with friends is a nightmare. Want to play Turf War? You’d better be okay with playing on opposite teams often because pairings are always random. Want to play Ranked Mode? Screw you; you can go host private battles and hope seven friends magically appear. How about League? If you have one or three friends, you’re good to go (provided that your friends are rank 10 and a B- in one Ranked Mode), but if your team only has three people altogether, well, you can play Turf War or Salmon Run instead (if it’s available). That’s what you really wanted to do, right?
  3. A bunch of other little issues add up to a major headache. Why can’t I change my weapon load-out while in a Regular or Ranked lobby?  Why is the voice chat so crappy?  Why isn’t Salmon Run offered 24/7?  Why are only two stages available to play at a time?  Why does the matchmaking process seem so poor?  Why can’t I choose to only play against people in my region?  Why do I have to play seven games every rotation in League Mode just to see my player score?  Why can’t I play against bots in private battles (this one is a bit of a stretch)?  If I’m kicked out of a game, why can’t I rejoin that game if there is still time left in the round?  Why is that guy squid-bagging me so much?  I hate him.  Why are certain Salmon Run bosses just utter garbage, like the Flyfish?  Why isn’t the intro sequence skippable?  Why aren’t there any mini games in the lobby anymore?  No matter the play session, these issues will pop up and cause at least a minor annoyance (if not much more).

Splatoon 3

What’s the verdict?

Nintendo and its aliens know what fun is and how to present it. However, they don’t always seem to realize what is logical, and Splatoon 2 shows Nintendo’s strange understanding of the world. The unique core experience and the genuinely joyous presentation deserve heaps of praise and adoration, but it’s difficult to enjoy the ride when numerous small issues make for a rocky road. These rough spots are all the more frustrating because they seem so easily fixable, and if they were fixed, Splatoon 2 would be a near perfect game. For most Switch gamers, Splatoon is still a must-have. Just keep your fingers crossed and hope Nintendo miraculously realizes their mistakes and addresses them in the game’s routine updates.

Arbitrary Statistics:

  • Score: 8
  • Time Played: 115 hours
  • Number of Players: 1
  • Games Like It on Switch: Doom, Arms

Scoring Policy

Posted by Solomon Rambling in Review
12
Nov
2017
Solomon Rambling’s Blogitorial:  Amiibo

Solomon Rambling’s Blogitorial:  Amiibo

Games in Plastic; It’s Fantastic

 No matter how I have tried to start this article, there isn’t a single artistic spin that lessens the absurdity of how much I have spent on amiibo.  I may not reach the insanity of the collectors who own every single chunk of NFC plastic, but with my array of over 30 different characters, I must recognize I have essentially burned nearly half a grand on glorified toys.  As a Magic:  the Gathering fan (in which cardboard has more worth than the American dollar), I should be desensitized to the idiocy of wasting disposable income on worthless junk, yet my amiibo budget makes me understand why my father is so disturbed by my lifestyle.

I take solace in knowing that I’m not the only sucker out there.  With the Super Mario Odyssey and the Breath of the Wild DLC amiibo just released, Nintendo must have a large enough audience to justify these plastic buggers when all other toy-to-life franchises have since sputtered and died.  The amiibo range is almost three years old, and although I was smitten by them when they first came out, my disappointment with them has grown like a slow fungus.  My displeasure hasn’t impacted my spending habits, mind you, but I have developed a deeper indignation each time I buy another amiibo.  It’s the feeling that counts, right?

Amiibo 1

Solomon is neither a photographer nor an owner of a good camera. He will fix neither issue.

If amiibo were only meant to be toys with no game functionality, I would probably not have gripes.  Sure, $13-15 a pop is expensive for a little figurine, but when Funko Pop figures run at $10, I question the sanity of the plastic collectible world in general.  However, the novelty of amiibo was that they could interact with multiple Nintendo games in different ways (and across platforms!), something that other toy-to-life franchises could not do.  Although amiibo have had bright moments, as a brand, they have struggled to develop an enduring identity, and Nintendo doesn’t seem to have a clear plan on how to use them in the future.

It would be foolish of me to believe I have enough insight to advise Nintendo on how to improve their amiibo range.  Fortunately, my $500 in plastic paraphernalia is evidence enough that I’m just the right amount of foolish to confront the topic anyway.  Nintendo has already demonstrated how amiibo can enhance a game; the conundrum to address here is which implementation best justifies the existence of these figurines.

The Low-Hanging Fruit

Super Mario Odyssey offers two examples of amiibo functionality, neither of which provide a compelling reason to splurge on the hunks of plastic.  The first example is the “Scan-to-Win” garbage seen in other games like Hyrule Warriors or Pokkén Tournament.  In those games, you can use any amiibo to receive in-game currency and items, which are easily attainable anyway.  In Odyssey, you can scan an amiibo with Uncle Amiibo and wait five minutes (because screw you, that’s why) to have the location of a random Power Moon charted on your map.  The other example is that certain amiibo can unlock specific costumes for Mario.  These costumes can be bought in the game, but amiibo get these costumes to you sooner and for free.  Effectively, amiibo are a cool, harmless black market.

Out of all of the amiibo functionalities, these two features are the most innocuous and most widely-implemented.  I imagine it takes very little effort to program this reward system, and because the unlocks are so easy to attain without amiibo, no one will feel screwed for not owning a bunch of figurines.  It is theoretically nice that almost any amiibo can be used to unlock this content, but again, the unlock is so unremarkable, the effort and time needed to scan often outweighs the actual reward.

Amiibo 2

A step above this amiibo functionality is what I call “Skin-Pack Scans.”  If Team Fortress 2, PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, and countless other online offerings have shown us anything, it is that people will pay exorbitant prices to accessorize their in-game character.  When a skirt or a caribou-shaped hood can go for hundreds or thousands of dollars, wouldn’t it be a steal to spend only $15 to get multiple outfits and a toy figure?  This is at least what I think Nintendo’s advertising committee discussed at one point.

In Yoshi’s Wooly World, you can use your amiibo to unlock exclusive Yoshis like Ganondorf Yoshi, Inkling Girl Yoshi, and Black Yoshi (otherwise known as Game-and-Watch Yoshi).  For the Legend of Zelda:  Breath of the Wild, specific amiibo have a small chance (because again, screw you) to drop retro outfits (including Link’s iconic cap) when scanned.  If you like to flaunt your amiibo ownership online, Splatoon 2 offers vintage gear from the first game with Splatoon series amiibo.

Skin-Packs Scans are a little tempting because they give you access to exclusive content.  Mind you, this content is purely aesthetic, so you’ll have to live with knowing you are essentially paying extra money to play dress-up with your video game characters.  That said, because the content is so superfluous, not many people are going to be upset if they don’t own a particular amiibo.  Additionally, if you have a friend with poorer spending habits than you, you can just steal their amiibo, scan them, and ship them back since these are all “read-only” unlocks.  Again, the feature is nifty, but if this was all amiibo did, I would hope the quality of the physical product was better to make up for the lack of game functionality.

Amiibo 5

DLC in a Toy

At this point, it’s evident that I expect amiibo to add a little meat to my game to be worthwhile, but this is where we get into sticky territory.  Amiibo have widely been criticized as being “physical DLC.”  Instead of purchasing a download, you buy a toy which you have to scan every time you want to access said DLC.  This is assuming you can find the toy in-stock at your local store.  If you can’t, you will have to brave the seedy areas of eBay to acquire your desired amiibo for thrice its MSRP.  When the amiibo craze was in its hey-day, many gamers were appropriately frustrated with the thought of having to fight off scalpers and other gamers just to play what was essentially day-one DLC.

The issue is that this physical DLC functionality is what makes amiibo worth their price.  My Link amiibo unlocked a unique weapon for Hyrule Warriors.  My Toad amiibo offered a thorough (albeit shallow) new mode for Captain Toad:  Treasure Tracker.  The original three Splatoon amiibo each gave you access to a new way to progress through the single-player campaign, a cool outfit, and a mini-game to help you survive the lobby wait times.  Each of these products aren’t worth $15 alone, but when you add the amiibo itself and its functionality with other games, the concept of amiibo finally becomes justified.

How, then, can amiibo deliver this meaningful content without causing people to grumble about needing “Metal Tiara Rosalina” just to play a secret level?  Remarkably, Super Smash Bros. 4—the first game to utilize amiibo—showed us how to use amiibo correctly.  Although part of the amiibo’s appeal was that you could get your favorite Nintendo character, you could use almost any amiibo for SSB4.  Each amiibo creates a fighter of itself which you can then train and customize (and farm items) to become a significantly more difficult opponent than Level 9 computers.  The feature seemed simple at first, but now there are whole guides dedicated to training your amiibo and tier lists arguing which amiibo are the strongest.

Amiibo 4

Some people may still gripe about having to buy amiibo to access these unique opponents/teammates, but this is a problem with DLC in general, not amiibo.  If you never bought into the amiibo scheme, you weren’t missing out because Smash is arguably about fighting your friends, not computers.  However, if you did grab a random character during one of your shopping trips, you had access to a surprisingly deep supplemental feature.  Even I still use amiibo to train.  And the best part?  You don’t need every single amiibo to access the content.  Sure, buy a specific amiibo if you want a specific fighter, but if you aren’t picky, you can grab whichever Smash amiibo is cheapest and call it good.  If the SSB4 model (amiibo = trainable computers) was applied to all other amiibo games, I might even be satisfied with this.

The amiibo Dream

That said, my pipe dream for amiibo is much more grandiose.  Apart from SSB4, my favorite amiibo games (at least in concept) were amiibo Tap:  Nintendo’s Greatest Bits and Mini Mario and Friends:  amiibo Challenge.  Both games were free-to-download and were entirely useless unless you owned amiibo.  The more amiibo you owned, the more content you could access.  For the most part, amiibo Tap was utter garbage because it offered glorified demos of games most people have already played.  Mini Mario and Friends was a solid game, but it’s biggest issue was that you had to pay around $150 in amiibo to access all of the content.   When your Diddy Kong amiibo does diddly squat outside of Mini Mario, paying $15 for a handful of levels doesn’t feel dandy.

This brings me to my pipe dream:  I want a free-to-download “amiibo Land.”  I loved the Wii U’s Nintendo Land to death despite its shallowness and inconsistent game quality, and I want to see a spiritual successor through amiibo.  Each amiibo you scan would unlock a random new mini game or mode.  You would need to scan your amiibo at the beginning of each play session, but you wouldn’t have to endure the tap-marathons found in games like Mario Party 10 or the atrocious Animal Crossing:  amiibo Festival.  Maybe you would have to own a whopping 20 different amiibo to access all the content, but who cares?  I already own that many, damn it.

You could argue my “amiibo Land” idea is just another Skylanders, Lego Dimensions, or Disney Infinity, and you’d be right.  That’s why it is a pipe dream.  None of those franchises are alive today, and we could arguably claim the amiibo brand is dying when its sales for 2016/17 financial year were 9.1 million figures, compared to 24.7 million in 2015/16 year.  Although 9.1 million sales still seem like a huge amount to me, it may not be to Nintendo, especially not enough to justify a large-scale free-to-download game.  Hell, the number may not be big enough for them to consider implementing amiibo functionality on the SSB4 level.

Amiibo 3

What I do know is Nintendo continues to churn out these figurines, with 34 different characters released in 2017 (the same number released in 2016).  With all the other toy-to-life series dead, Nintendo theoretically has the market to themselves, so there has to be money in amiibo.  Even after hundreds of dollars and few compatible games, amiibo still maintains some appeal for me.  They look cool; I’m an avid Nintendo fan.  Put those two together, and I bleed money.  That said, I don’t have to be happy about my hemophilia.

Let’s Wrap This Up

Ultimately, we can look at amiibo as their own little gaming system.  A gaming system can be as eye-catching and as trendy as it wants to be, but its success is dependent on its quality games. Right now, amiibo has had only one “AAA title,” that being SSB4.  There are “A/B” level games as well, but for every Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker or Mini Mario and Friends, there are the “shovelware” implementations which offer skin packs or farm resources.  Like its debut system, the Wii U, amiibo have great potential to create something novel, but currently, we have a system fumbling around in a wasteland of bad decisions and minimal payoff.

_________

Do you agree with me?  Are you personally offended by my beliefs?  Do you just hate my guts?  Leave a comment to express your innermost desires, and I’ll selectively choose the ones which stroke my ego.

Posted by Solomon Rambling in Blogitorial
04
Nov
2017
Solomon Rambles About Droppings

Solomon Rambles About Droppings

Magical Drop II

More of a Drip

How many hours does it take to get to the meat of the game?  In my Rocket Fist review, I highlighted how I track my play hours to gauge if the amount of content justified the price.  I also keep my hours for another purpose:  to show if I truly attempted to play the game.  My reasons for doing this confront an issue I see in the reviewing world.  Based on the content of some reviews, it’s apparent the reviewers devote as few hours as they can to the game—for whatever reason—before spewing forth an opinion.  This results in shoddy writing, be it because the writers fail to unlock all the relevant content, miss key elements of a story, or fail to develop the skill necessary to truly enjoy the gameplay.

So how many hours do you need to develop a valid opinion?  For a game like Breath of the Wild, 100 hours isn’t necessary, but I’m hesitant to listen to anyone who has invested less than 25 on it.  Comparatively, 25 hours on something like Mario Kart 8 Deluxe or Splatoon 2 may be more than enough, even if you could spend considerably more time on both of them.  Looking at the reviews I have completed thus far, I admit that I kind of cringe seeing how I’ve played the majority of these games less than ten hours.  Part of me wishes I could be more thorough, but the other part reminds me I’d die of boredom before reaching the 10-hour mark of Wonder Boy:  the Dragon’s Trap.

MD 3

This brings us to Magical Drop II, which has a whopping two hours of playtime.  Bought on a whim during those first dry months of the Switch’s lifespan, Magical Drop lasted me a few days before I dropped it from memory.  For a puzzler heralded as one of the Neo Geo’s crowning gems, it probably deserves more attention, but it’s hard for me to imagine even doubling my playtime over the course of the Switch’s lifespan.  Thus, at the risk of being barraged by hate mail from all of the Magical Drop fans who happen to read my articles, I present a review which has taken longer to create and post than to play.

What is it?

As is abundantly evident in the title, Magical Drop involves matching columns of at least three of the same-colored balloons.  You choose a personified Tarot character as your board’s backdrop and then ignore that figure to take control of a jester at the bottom of the screen.  On top of the screen are the randomized columns of balloons, which steadily descend (or drop, if you will) until they crush your body into a pulpy mess. To sidestep death, your jester can pull the bottom-most balloons to him, grabbing as many as he chooses as long as they are of the same color. Once you have gathered your fill, you can rocket your collected balloons back up in a single column. If you have three-of-a-kind, the match disappears, along with any adjoining balloons of the same color.

Once you make a match, you have a small window of time in which to chain a combo. If your match triggers other balloons to fall into another three-of-a-kind, you got yourself a combo.  As matches flash and balloons rearrange, you have time to grab and fling more balloons to further inflate your combo.  The bigger the combo, the more rows you add to your opponent’s board. Whoever’s jester doesn’t get smashed wins the game and gets sold into slavery or something. Occasionally, you will get special balloons which clear an entire color if matched together, which is magical presumably.

MD 2

Player vs. computer and player vs. player are the main attractions, but a score attack mode and a puzzle mode (only included in the Japanese rendition) provide some extra variety with unique power-ups and obstacles. This being an ACA release, you have access to unlimited tokens, a suspend feature, various options to tweak, and a Caravan Mode for posting high-scores online. True to its arcade roots, a game of Magical Drop will last only a few minutes before you encounter a game over screen. Considerable practice (or the humility to decrease the game’s difficulty) is needed to survive past the game’s opening stages.

What’s good?

  1. Magical Drop, itself, is a fun twist on most puzzle games. Although some strategy is involved in creating combos, your speed (muscle memory, reflexes, and ability to identify matches) is what will win you the game. With many versus rounds over in under a minute, intensity runs as high as a preteen at her first music concert.
  2. Each mode is novel enough to be entertaining. Versus will suck up most of your playtime, but both the score attack and puzzle modes can lull you into the same pleasing zen-like haze you may encounter with endless Tetris or LSD.
  3. The game oozes sex appeal. You like three-eyed chicks wrapped in sheets? Got you covered. Prefer women with big jugs?  Let’s just say one character’s jugs can carry a lot of water.  Are you more of a person who likes snot-nosed youth? You’re disgusting, but at least you’re not left out, you perverted sack of crap.

What’s bad?

  1. The experience is shallow. Unless you glom onto the game’s basic gimmick, you won’t have much to keep you playing after the half-hour mark. As an arcade game, Magical Drop was never meant to last more than a few minutes, and this limitation shows itself pretty quickly.
  2. The game is unforgiving to newbies. Computer opponents can be nasty, but the real issue lies in player vs. player matches. Unless you have a buddy who is as into Magical Drop as you, you will probably steamroll over anybody you introduce to the game. With matches over so quickly, your opponents don’t have a chance to practice and improve. Muscle memory and reflexes don’t really develop over the course of a few rounds, and by the time they do, most of your friends will be ready to move onto other games.
  3. The balloons are not balloons. Magical Drop may pretend they are, but they’re really marbles. They clack together; they don’t float around; and they’re completely spherical. Although a minor complaint, it makes the game literally unplayable.

MD 4

What’s the verdict?

Magical Drop II‘s core concept is just as entertaining as other puzzlers, but there isn’t enough of it to be engaging in the long-term.  Because there isn’t much to the game, there isn’t much to dislike about it either.  In an arcade, I would certainly drop (in a magical way, no less) a few quarters into Magical Drop, but I’m not convinced eight bucks justifies bringing the virtual cabinet home with you. There are so many other, brighter balloons out there to crush your life force.

Arbitrary Statistics:

  • Score: 6
  • Time Played: 2 hours
  • Number of Players: 1-2
  • Games Like It on Switch: Puyo Puyo Tetris, Tumblestone

Scoring Policy

Posted by Solomon Rambling in Review
01
Nov
2017
Solomon Rambles About Japanese-Russian Relations

Solomon Rambles About Japanese-Russian Relations

Puyo Puyo Tetris

Pretty Pretty Terrific

 Video game crossovers are familiar territory in the gaming world.  On the Switch alone, we have Mario + Rabbids, Fire Emblem Warriors, and even the Blaster Master DLC characters.  On paper, all of these examples probably sounded somewhat nonsensical.  In the case of Mario + Rabbids, the internet collectively cringed when the concept art first leaked.  However, each game has shown that the crossovers can be wildly successful, drawing on and combining the strengths of each included franchise.  The end product may still be strange, but strange combos can still be good, just like fried chicken and waffles.

PPT 5

Although I imagine few people were clamoring for a Puyo Puyo/Tetris crossover prior to the release of Puyo Puyo Tetris (PPT), it’s not surprising that these two juggernauts could share a home together.  Both series have produced some quality games, so you would hope that merging them could create an experience greater than its separate parts.  That goal isn’t quite realized with PPT; in fact, the opposite may be true.  Let’s make this clear:  Puyo Puyo Tetris offers a great rendition of each series.  That said, when the two try to mix, their resulting love child is less than pleasant.

What is it?

Most gamers are familiar with Tetris, having played it on a console, handheld, or calculator at some point in their lives.  For those of you who haven’t played Tetris yet, you’re lying.  You’ve played it.  If you’re still insistent that you haven’t, Tetris places you in the role of a zookeeper who must feed his animals with limited supplies.    In order to make matches, you must pair an animal with what it eats.  Rhinos eat grass; lions eat rhinos; humans eat lions; and grass eat humans.  Build up your food chain, and whoever’s zookeeper survives longest wins.

Comparatively, Puyo Puyo is less recognizable to a western audience.  “Puyos” (little colored blobs) will fall down in pairs, which you can rotate just like tetrominoes.  Your basic goal is to group together four or more same-colored puyos to make them disappear.  Making matches is easy enough, but to win, you’ll need to make combos.  Unlike tetrominoes, puyos follow the rules of gravity once placed and will fall to the bottom if there is space.  This is the key to combos because you will want to arrange your puyos to create a domino effect. Ideally, once a match is made, the surrounding puyos will fall to create another match, which hopefully triggers another.  Successful combos will send “trash puyos” raining on your opponent’s board.  Trash puyos cannot create matches, and to remove them, you have to make matches beside them.  As with Tetris, if your screen fills to the top with puyos, you lose.

PPT 4

Throughout numerous modes, Puyo Puyo and Tetris come together in three main flavors.  In most modes, you and your opponents each choose to play either Puyo Puyo or Tetris alone, allowing you to abuse each other with your weapon of choice.  Conversely, Swap Mode forces you to alternate between each puzzle game every thirty seconds.  If you lose on one board, you lose the game.  The novelty with Swap Mode is you can chain combos across your two board states when you swap, allowing you to hail hell on your opponents if you juggle your clears/matches correctly.  Lastly, Fusion Mode throws both puyos and tetrominoes on a single board, and these pieces must be cleared just as you would in a normal mode.  Block/blob placement is key because as the two mix, stringing together combos becomes less intuitive.

What’s good?

  1. Both Puyo Puyo and Tetris are inherently great games.  Both can be picked up relatively easily, and both have the “one-more-round” addictiveness of crack cocaine.    Unless you hate puzzle games or crack cocaine, you will enjoy one of these games.  And if you happen to hate Puyo Puyo or Tetris, you can effectively ignore one half of PPT and still have a solid game.
  2. There are modes galore. For multiplayer alone, you have Versus, Party, Fusion, Swap, and Big Bang.  For the lone player, you have those modes plus a story mode and challenges like Marathon, Tiny Puyo, and Sprint.  The online features are pretty robust as well, and the online community is still active to this day.
  3. Swap mode is absurdly satisfying. I would venture to guess most players will have some skill with Tetris before playing PPT but will have barely touched Puyo Puyo.  Swap allows for players to slowly grow accustomed to Puyo Puyo while still being able to compete with their Tetris skills.  Once you have mastered both Tetris and Puyo Puyo, you’re introduced to the joy of blasting massive combos utilizing the swap mechanic.

What’s bad?

  1. Fusion is absolutely atrocious. Other reviewers have come to enjoy this mode, but try as I might, I haven’t been able to see its merit.  Fusion theoretically adds another level of complexity by challenging you to manage your puyo matches and Tetris clears on the same board, but the result is less “rub your stomach and pat your head,” and more “shove your fist down your throat and shove your other fist down your throat.”  As is the case with double-fisting your throat, Fusion feels frustrating, unintuitive, and boring.
  2. The Party and Big Bang modes are intriguing but don’t have much substance. Party mode focuses heavily on items which can temporarily speed up your opponents’ game, prevent them from rotating pieces, or generally screw up a normal board state.  While good for a laugh, Party’s antics favor chaos over control, which will turn off many players.  Big Bang, meanwhile, gives you pre-constructed boards which can be cleared with easy combos, and players compete to complete more boards than their opponents.  Again, the mode is nifty but grows tiresome after a few rounds.
  3. Puyo Puyo Tetris lacks certain quality-of-life features present in previous games. Apart from Party, there is no multiplayer score attack mode.  You can’t practice after you are knocked out of a round, a feature that can greatly help beginning players.  You can’t select computer difficulties; instead, each character has a hidden difficulty level, and you’ll have to figure what this level is, supposedly by dating the character and developing your shared bond or something.  Other features are missing, and although their absences do not necessarily ruin the game, PPT feels more like a debut game rather than a feature-rich entry expected of two long-running franchises.

What’s the verdict?

Puyo Puyo Tetris is a wholly solid game in hopefully what will become a continuing series.  Whether you are attracted to blobs or blocks, PPT has something to appeal to your interests.  It’s a game for all occasions:  great on the go or on a TV, perfect for friends or by your lonesome, pitiable self, and appropriate for a quick round or for hours-long marathons.  Apart from Swap, PPT doesn’t reinvent either puzzle series, but the marriage of these two franchises still makes for one of the best puzzle games on the Switch.

Arbitrary Statistics:

  • Score: 8
  • Time Played: 85 hours
  • Number of Players: 1-4
  • Games Like It on Switch: Magical Drop II, Tumblestone

Scoring Policy

Posted by Solomon Rambling in Review