24: Cricket '19 (Career Mode) (Switch) - 3/10

I played a previous game in this series on the Xbox Gamepass, and it was much better.  This runs poorly and doesn't fit well with the Switch.  My issues are:

*Low resolution means I couldn't see where I'd hit the ball when I was batting

*Lower frame rate made batting way harder than it was on the earlier Xbox game

*Long loading times.  Couple of minutes it felt like to load up a game.  Then you have to watch a boring preable with the umpires putting bails on stumps, and dead eyed blank faced robot character models tossing a coin to see who bats.  Then you sim to when you get to bat or bowl.  Then when it's your turn to bat you might get out off one ball.  Or on a one day/2020 game you might not get to bat at all.    Even when you are batting or bowling for a while it has a slow autosave feature every couple of balls where the camera slowly pans around the scoreboard.  It's maddening.  In this regard it has nailed the 'wtf am i doing with my life?!' feeling you get while playing real life cricket

*Also the text is tiny in handheld mode.  This didn't really bother me I'm just whinging for the sake of it now.

Would try again if this version came to gamepass but a regrettable purchase on Switch.  Should have put the money towards Donkey Kong.

That was my fav CoD.

42. Hyper Light Drifter - Switch (5hrs 4mins)

Stylish action Zelda dash 'n slash effort first released in 2016.  Non-linear in terms of your choice of route for the first three areas, which resulted in me choosing poorly - the first boss I found was easily the trickiest in the game.  In a weird way this probably helped get me on the hook from the outset, he was a real struggle with a barebones bag of tricks. The action is decent and I found it all quite moreish, but some of the mechanics were slightly off key.  The manual heal on six blocks of health always felt odd, for example, and even with practice the double dash timing loved to give me a nope.  It's chock full of secrets, but I tended to push on as soon as I'd collected enough key shards, so I expect I left a lot of things undiscovered.  I have no idea what the numerous monoliths I activated did, for example. Exploration for progression is fun though, mainly because the combat is quite neat and tidy.

On the whole I thoroughly enjoyed it.  It's easily one of the most luscious audiovisual packages out there - I could happily hang some of the artwork on a wall or listen to the soundrack while washing up - but just a smidge shy of greatness at its core.  Got to add this bit in too - it constantly evoked half-memories of Fez, which was nice. [8]

43. Huntdown - Switch (4hrs)

Superb run & gun firmly rooted in the arcades of yesteryear.  It's an over the top pastiche on the surface; there's no real subtlety to the tone - the GET SOME is tongue (lightly planted) in cheek, but it's also born to kill.  It's framed as an amalgamation of all the video covers in the action section of an early 90's Ritz, yet the gameplay is perfectly refined.  Make no mistake, this is the ultimate form of the genre it mimics.  Whether you're down with this sort of thing or 'down with this sort of thing' is on you, but it ticks all the boxes for me.  It's bizarre how the best game of its type (IMHO) has been made thirty years after the genre's heyday, but the more I played the more impressive the achievement became.   It's mostly slow paced, so measured play reaps the rewards, although there's scope for better players to tear around thanks to the dash/slide moves. 

The most obvious touchpoints in the way it plays are Rolling Thunder, with its horizontal fire, and the original Data East Robocop, with its immensely satisfying slug thuds and general 6000 SUX-iness.  I mentioned Cuphead in another thread, which gets my endorsement as a very good game, but it's at the opposite end of spectrum with shot feedback.  Enemies in Cuphead are bullet soakers, whereas Huntdown has far more weight and bite to its gunplay.  Even your standard popgun pops.  Of course, restricting the fire to two directions means even some run 'n gun fans may automatically find something amiss, but I've always been into this style if done well, from Shinobi to Gunman Clive. 
 
The characters are just about varied enough to warrant experimentation, but their abilities aren't game changers.  Wisecracking heroes is an easily made yet bold development choice as it so often goes wrong, but they don't repeat lines too often and I was fine with it.  It over-eggs the hard boiledness, but so what?  Two player mode works perfectly, although I'd recommend a harder difficulty setting for couch co-op lovers thanks to the revive move.  Just about the only complaints I can think of are the melee weapons, which seem to have a delay on the input negating their effectiveness somewhat, and the fact that it's over.  Twenty stages is fine, but I would've lapped up an extra ten.  Perhaps they trimmed the fat as it doesn't put a foot wrong with its layouts or bosses.  Did I mention bosses?  It's treat time if you like a pattern-based toplads/lasses waiting for you at the end of every stage.  There's not a dud in the pack either.    

I said this in the Switch thread and I'll say it again, I'd love this as an arcade cabinet.  There's plenty more to say and I could type about it all day but there's a pretty niche appeal to it, so you'll either look at the (early build) gif below and feel the sweet coin drop nostalgia pull or scoff at it like a young Elijah Wood.  For me it's either GotY or just behind. [9]

Moot_Geeza wrote:

39. Splasher - Switch (3hrs) Excellent checkpoint platform game recommended by monkey a page or so back.  I liked the sound of it but wasn't expecting it to be quite as good as it is.  The fact that such an inventive and well executed platformer can be - to the best of my knowledge - lost in the flotsam and jetsam of the indie market speaks volumes about the levels of choice these days.  Aside from the obvious goings on rn, what a time to be alive (nabbed it for £4 too).   This starts quite well and gradually improves with each and every upgrade, yet never makes the 'too many abilities' faux pas.  The final unlock is so good a couple of stages reach Meat Boy heights.  It's getting late and I'm up early so I'll leave it there (read monkey's review for more thorough thoughts), but this is in the upper tier for me, relegating Mr & Ms. Splosion Man.  Graphics are appealing too, it scales in and out exceptionally well, which doesn't sound noteworthy until you play it, but the close-up sections are always welcome as it looks so chunky & nice.  A lot of games go for this visual style these days, but not many pull it off successfully.  Might be one for @acemuzzy. 8.5 rounded up to [9]

@Subbax has sorted me out with a sparesy steam code - huzzah!!

21. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey - Fate of Atlantis -12hours- 10/10-Xbox One X

One of the best bits of DLC I’ve played. Yes it’s all the same missions over and over again but the stunning worlds they built and the mythology present throughout is truly incredible. The extra abilities, armour types and features they put in were also terrific and I wish I’d have had them all the way through. However by this point Alexios is an Isu-Human hybrid and he’s well aware so I suppose it makes sense only now would he fulfil his potential.

I loved that and I’m quite sad my time with Alexios in Greece, Elysium, the Underworld and Atlantis is at an end.

44. Toki Tori+ (Switch) - 7hrs-ish?

Really nice little puzzle game that deserves a higher mark than you'll see attached below.  Collect eggs spread around small stages using various abilities.  Not as easy as it sounds as there's usually a very specific order required for success, with a finite number of abilities at your disposal.  With the handy rewind function (spool back to any previous point in a level) you'll play out a game of trial and error as you attempt to unpick the puzzle.  It's easier said than done once it gets going, but once you get used to the systems in play you'll start to spot, for example, which egg had to be collected last and work from there.  It's great fun, with a huge sense of achievement when it all comes together, but as usual with games of this type it became too irritating for my tastes as it entered the final stretch.  I'm terrible at long form puzzles and they get extremely intricate in the final zone, to the point where I stopped enjoying myself as working towards each solution took upwards of 45 minutes (same thing happened with Baba is You and The Swapper).  I'm not cut out for these types of puzzle game really; anything that requires too much planning eventually makes me feel like a div and I'm usually happy to return to shooting stuff and jumping over things.  If the genre is up your alley it's a better game than Baba is You imo, it just looks a bit nasty and lacks the indie darling word manipulation hook. [7]  



My List

I'm confused, that toki Tori looks different to the one I played. Or at least I don't remember ghosts or lava. It was a while ago though, so I guess maybe I just forgot...

PC I think

22. Devil May Cry HD - 6 Hours- 7/10-Xbox One X

What a great game. Still holds up in so many ways and it’s really just great fun. You can see so much of the Resi 4 in it they never changed, some of the music is identical which is a nice touch. It’s batshit mental in terms of story, character and how both of those develop, but it’s all the better because of it. Onto number 2...unfortunately.

It's kinda gone under the radar compared to the big snes classics hasn't it?  Especially for a game that holds up so well/has Yoshi in it.  I remember the box art and very vaguely reading about it in the magazines but don't think anyone I knew had it.  Maybe because it came out quite late in the machine's life?  Dunno.  Great game though!

45. Kunai - Switch (5hrs)

Fast paced Metroidvania that's built around impressively solid player control, making it more of a 'playground screen' type than a sprawling epic.  In terms of world design this is resolutely old fashioned; you'll map out the areas as you plot a course, but there's little in the way of head scratching.  It's more Gato Roboto/Iconoclasts than Hollow Knight, which will either be welcomed or scoffed at depending on the hotness of your take.  Save stations do what they're supposed to and regenerate health, and they're rarely far enough apart for the (therefore manual) checkpointing to irritate.  Solid is a pretty good way to sum it up, it's the sort of thing I can't imagine many fans of the genre hating if they actually played it.  Spoiler alert (although not if you check the controls at the start), the dash move you acquire in a late game section should've been introduced earlier, and once the bazooka unlocks everything else become slightly redundant, but these are minor gripes.  Bosses are mostly good, one in particular is just shy of very good, and it's just about the right length too.

The dual kunai grappling hook mechanic is well worthy of high praise - mere seconds after they were introduced I knew traipsing around would be fun - and while there are a few pacing issues and annoyances here and there, overall it's a very good effort.  The pastel visuals are on point to the point where it's quite a looker in its own upper tier budget way.  In this day and age with the choices on offer in the genre it's a [7], but it's a Brent Rambo thumb up type of [7].  Worth a look if you're after a game that plays well and doesn't fuck itself in an attempt to over-achieve.  If it had been an early import only Saturn release retroheads would stroking their beards at it, giving it honourable mentions on LISTS and scouring the inlays for scuff marks.    




My List

I think Moot looks at the name, and if it sounds sufficiently made up he buys it.

23. Devil May Cry 2 HD - 5 Hours- 1/10-Xbox One X

Right now I’m thinking this is the worst game I’ve ever played. It looks awful, it’s slow, devoid of character, story, personality, but worse than all that, it has it all in the previous entry in abundance even if total silly nonsense. This is just absolutely awful in every single way. I will never, ever play that game again in my entire life. Absolutely bloody awful.

hylian_elf wrote:

Where do you find these games?! What I mean is, how do you decide (apart from price!) whether to play some of these small indies? Is there a list or mag somewhere? There’s a website I used to go by yeeeeeears ago when iOS was new which filtered all the millions of games down to select few worth playing, wonder if there is something like that for all these small cheap indie games saturating the Switch eshop.  FWIW, I think that gif of Kunai in your post makes it looks appealing!

It's EShop trawling mainly, or gamepass recently (PSN pre-Switch).  Either coming soon, new releases or the sales section.  Lots of trailers get watched every week, stuff gets added to my wishlist.  Kunai is one I've had my eye on for months (see also: Steamworld Quest, Hyper Light Drifter, Fight 'N Rage, Wulverblade, Bomb Chicken), but something like Akane (see also: Flat Heroes, Switch 'n Shoot, A Hole New World, Whipsey & the Lost Atlas, Who Cut the Cheese, Way of the Passive Fist, Never Stop Sneaking, Molehill Mountain, Super One More Jump, Ding Dong, Daggerhood and Chinny & The Reckoning) it's usually price/discount first, interest piqued/not piqued, then checking the internet to see if I can find anyone who loves it.