Super Smash Bros Ultimate Impressions

 The arrival of a new Smash is always a major event in a console generation, and the latest edition, Smash Ultimate for Nintendo Switch is no exception. With the massive scope of this game and the constraints holiday time puts on my gaming sessions, I’ve only just scratched the surface of this cross-over fighting behemoth. Since this time of year makes it tough to coordinate multiplayer sessions with friends, my time with Smash has been devoted to the game’s new single-player campaign: World of Light.

Regardless of which mode you pick, the player is limited to only a tiny selection of the game’s 70+ character roster. In Classic mode (i.e. the arcade-style single-player mode) and multi-player, only the original eight characters from the N64 game are available the first time you load the game. In World of Light, the only starting character is Kirby. As a result, the main incentive for progressing through the Classic and World of Light campaigns is to unlock the rest of the characters.

Some thoughts on World of Light:

• This mode features a world map screen with each node on the map representing a battle. This map is absolutely huge, offering a variety of branching paths, and new areas to uncover. Some paths are opened simply by winning battles, others involve light puzzle-solving. This help gives this campaign more of an adventure game feel.
• The majority of these battles are Spirit fights which use modified versions of the playable characters to represent characters from other games. Winning these battles allows you to progress through the map and unlock Spirit stickers which can be equipped to enhance your characters stats and also serve as the game’s main collectible (replacing trophies). Other than Spirit battles, there are a few special nodes peppered throughout the map that are battles that unlock new playable characters. Since getting to each character battles involves completing many Spirit battles first, playing World of Light seems to be a slower route to unlocking the full roster compared to other modes.
• With how staggeringly large the roster of Smash Ultimate is, it’s nice to have a mode that eases you into it and gives you an excuse to spend time with each character individually. I think the game wisely chose Kirby to be the first playable character as his move set is very accessible to new players.
• While the gameplay of World of Light is still primarily a succession of fights, like any other fighting game, the ability to equip Spirits with different attributes adds a layer of RPG mechanics. Certain Spirits have abilities on the map screen as well. For example, one path of the map is obstructed by a collapsed bridge that requires a Spirit with a repair skill to make passable.
• Having the right combination of Spirits equipped for a given battle can help tip the scales in the player’s favor. For less-practiced fighting game players like my wife and I, this ability to use a loadout to compensate for a lack of pure fighting game skill makes it far more feasible for us to make it all the way through the campaign.
• This is an exclusively single-player campaign; however, my wife and I have been playing through it cooperatively in alternating fashion. Since the Spirit battles are marked with difficulty ratings (1 to 4 stars), and these difficulties are evenly distributed around the map, it’s easy for my wife and me to divide the battles between us based on our respective skill levels.

So far, we’ve been pleasantly surprised with how robust this single-player campaign is in this primarily multiplayer-focused fighting game! After having the game for only one weekend, my wife and I have already put 9 hours into Smash Ultimate, nearly all of which has been in World of Light mode. In the coming weeks I’m looking forward to exploring the other features this massive game has to offer, so be sure to check back in the future for updated impressions or a review!

Nintendo Switch Demo Roundup

Since finishing Blossom Tales, I’ve primarily been focusing on PC and mobile games for the last several weeks. However, the effects of Switch withdrawal have been setting in, so I decided to see what’s been going on lately on Nintendo’s hybrid console by rounding up some demos from recent or upcoming games.

Kirby Star Allies

My wife and I have played through several Kirby games together and they are usually wonderful co-op experiences. Thus, we went into this one with high expectations. The general look and feel of the game appealed to us in classic Kirby fashion, but the “Allies” component yielded mixed results. Kirby rolls with a squad of 3 companions that can be controlled by other players or the AI. By combining his abilities with those of his allies, Kirby can use special combo skills that are a lot of fun to experiment with. Unfortunately having a team of four characters on screen along with flashy combo moves means that there’s a lot of chaos on the screen and keeping track of the character that you’re directly in control of can become difficult. Unfortunately, all this on-screen busyness (especially with the erratic AI companions) detracted from the more subdued co-op experience that we were looking for. I think we’re going to hold off on this one until we get a better picture of what the upcoming Yoshi game will be like that promises to scratch a similar itch.

 BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle

As I had mentioned in my Skullgirls review, it's been a while since I've really sunk my teeth into a traditional fighting game. Blazblue Cross Tag Battle mashes up several franchises but caught my attention in particular due to the inclusion of characters from RWBY and Persona 4 (I'm currently watching/playing both). The game also features characters from the Japanese arcade game, Under Night In-Birth, and of course, BlazBlue. The content of this demo was extremely slim, featuring only one character from each franchise and only one stage, but it was enough for me to get a sense for Cross Tag Battle's Marvel-vs-Capcom-style combat. I also appreciated that every combination of characters features unique animations and voice work. I have heard that previous BlazBlue games have featured pretty good single-player content, so I'm tempted to bite on this one if it gets good reviews.

Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido

Well, this was certainly the strangest of the bunch. In Nintendo's latest puzzle game, you play as a "sushi striker", a warrior who defeats their enemies by rapidly eating as much sushi as possible and then throwing the dirty plates at their foe. I was expecting a simple little puzzle game with a goofy premise as window dressing; instead, I found that Sushi Striker is a game with a fully-featured campaign featuring lengthy anime cut scenes, lots of voice acting, a sing-a-long theme song, and of course, one of the most bizarre plots I've every seen in a game. The game play consists of matching up different colors of sushi as the pass by on a series of conveyor belts and then flinging the empty plates at the rival sushi striker. The game also features some RPG-like elements with player stats and the ability to use special moves by partying up with magical creatures called "sushi sprites" (basically seafood-obsessed Pokemon). The game play and story were amusing enough to get my wife and I pretty interested in this game, but the $50-price tag gave us some pause. I'll be keeping my eye on this one.

Happy Birthdays

First up, I'll admit that the only thing I knew about this game in the beginning is that the promotional artwork featured some really cute drawings of dinosaurs. It turns out that beneath this game's cute exterior, lies a complex SimEarth-like ecosystem simulation game. In the beginning, the game features a helper character, appropriately named Navi, who prattles on tirelessly (and redundantly) about the game's mechanics. Once Navi is finally done with you, the player is turned to loose to tinker with the world's temperature, topography, moisture content, and a variety of other factors in order to get new lifeforms to spawn. For someone like me, who likes a game with structure, Happy Birthdays didn't hold my interest for long. However, for a natural born tinkerer like my wife, there is a definitely a lot of appeal to tweaking the terrain of a planet and then watching as new types of cute little critters are born; she spent several hours building mountains, rerouting streams, and collecting creatures. Thus, this a is a title whose appeal will vary greatly depending on your personality.

If you're interested in buying or pre-ordering any of the games in this post and also supporting this blog, you can use the Amazon affiliate links below:
Kirby Star Allies
BlazBlue Cross Tag Battle
Sushi Striker: The Way of Sushido
Happy Birthdays

Skullgirls Review

Skullgirls is an indie fighting game that I’ve been hearing people talk about for years and I decided that since January is #FightingGameMonth, it was finally time to give it a shot. (It also didn’t hurt that the game was on sale for $2.99 on Steam.) While I used to dabble in fighting games periodically, I never latched on to any particular game long enough to become truly competitive and it’s been many years since I’ve played a traditional 2D fighter. Here were my takeaways from the game and my return to the genre:

• The character art is the first thing that jumps out when you start the game. Each of the all-female cast of combatants has a unique look that blends an anime art style with a retro 1940s western cartoon aesthetic. Like many fighting games with primarily female characters, the character designs lean a little too heavily on the “fan service” for my taste but I otherwise appreciate how unique each character is: an undead catgirl who can remove her head and use it as a weapon, a tiny acrobat whose hat sprouts giant muscular arms, an amalgam of Olive Oil from Popeye and Inspector Gadget, etc. The animations for each of these characters are beautiful and do a lot to give each character her own personality.
• While the design and animation of each character are great, this quality comes at the cost of quantity; there are very few characters to choose from in the base game. At the start, there are only six playable characters with two more that can be unlocked. There are also a few extra characters that can be purchased separately.
• As somebody with very limited fighting game skills, I was glad to see that the game includes a pretty thorough tutorial that teaches the games various special moves and systems. Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to play through all of them in order to gain a grasp of the game’s intricacies.
• Most of the special moves in the game are based on quarter-circle movements with the joystick combined with a button press (similar to Street Fighter). I've always been terrible at pulling these off consistently.
• The game features local and online multiplayer modes and well as two types of single-player mode: story and arcade. Story mode, the mode I spent the most time with, tries to provide some backstory for each character and justify why all these ladies are beating each other up… but I can’t say it made much sense to me. I’m guessing the intent of the story is for players play through each character’s path and piece things together, but it gets pretty repetitive, so I only played through with two of the six characters. I might return to it a later date though.
• From a gameplay standpoint, the story mode has you fight through each of the other girls on the roster with brief visual novel style cutscenes in between. Since my fighting game skills are extremely rusty, I played through on easy mode and won each of the bouts without too much trouble until I hit a substantial difficulty spike at the final boss. Each story mode path takes about 30 minutes to complete.
• The arcade mode is just a straightforward succession of fights. Unlike the story mode, arcade mode uses a tag team mechanic that allows you to switch between two characters mid-match. This makes for some interesting combinations and I found myself wishing that I could play this way in story mode as well.

The game features a jazzy soundtrack that goes well with the 1940s motif. The fight announcer is corny and over-the-top but that suits the game well.

Overall, Skullgirls is probably a great game for people who love completive fighters like Marvel vs Capcom. However, there might not be enough here for casual players like me unless they want to devote the time to gain mastery. I enjoyed my time with Skullgirls and appreciated it from a creative standpoint, but after a few hours, I was ready to move on.

Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Completion time: About 2 hours (Two story mode campaigns and experimenting with other modes)

Note: This review is based on the original version of the game. There is an enhanced “Second Encore” version that has more content but I haven’t had the chance to try it.

 

Stick Fight Review

A poor man's Smash Bros... but that poor man probably knows how to party!

Stick Fight: The Game is probably one of the most simple and straight-forward titles I've ever reviewed. In this physics-based fighting game, each player, represented by a stick figure, is dropped into an arena and battles to the death with an assortment of random weapons that fall from the sky. The controls are exceptionally simple for a fighting game; the only moves are run, jump, and attack. Players defeat each other by either dealing enough damage to score a kill or knocking each other off the screen. The moment that there is only one stick person left, the arena reconfigures itself and everyone respawns. Repeat.

Despite the simplicity of the game, Stick Fight kept my friends and I glued to our computers for several hours. A combination of three factors makes this seemingly shallow title so entertaining: level variety, unpredictability, fluidity.

• The level design in Stick Fight is the game's strongest feature. Each time the stage reshuffles, the players are thrown into another set of environmental hazards that can range from lava flows, to explosive barrels, to destructible ice platforms. There are probably about fifty different stage layouts and the key to victory is quickly figuring out how to use the environment to your advantage. 
• Nothing in Stick Fight ever plays out exactly as you would expect. Sometimes just the right weapon lands at your feet to give you the upper hand. Th next thing you know, you're firing that weapon at your enemies and the absurdly strong recoil causes you to ricochet off a series of explosive barrels to your doom. Every once in awhile a brazen unarmed stick person can rush into a barrage of bullets and land a knock-out punch on a heavily armed foe. A few seconds later, a stray bullet might topple a stack of crates that crush the triumphant pugilist. Some guns fire angry snakes instead of bullets. Anything can happen in a bout of Stick Fight and it's hilarious.
• The flow from one match to the next is seamless. Bitter about that last round where your victory was snatched from you at the last second? In a few seconds, the next round will begin and you'll forget all about it! Each battle usually lasts no more than a few seconds and after a quick flash of text acknowledges the winner, the next round begins immediately.

Stick Fight is one of those games that you and your friends will find yourself saying "just one more round"... and then you look up at the clock and realize that whole hour has gone by. Eventually, you'll see every level, weapon, and zany outcome that can happen in a match, but in the meantime, you'll have had several hours of laughs with your friends and have more than gotten your $5 out of the game. I'd highly recommend Stick Fight to those looking for a fun multiplayer game that they don't have to take too seriously.

Score: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️

Acknowledgement: I'm playing this game as part of #FightingGameMonth. This event is part of the Chic-Pixel blog's Community Game Along series. For more info, check out their post on this month's theme.

Demo Hotness: ARMS Global Test Punch

A game that I like more in theory than I do in practice

 

Over the past 2 weekends, I've had the opportunity to try out the online multiplayer demo of Nintendo's newest fighting game, ARMS. Now that I've been able to participate in 3 different sessions of the ARMS Global Test Punch, my thoughts on the game are starting to come together.

• Controls: I initially went back and forth between two of the game's control schemes: motion controls and Pro-controller. In general, I found that while the motion controls allow for more fine control of punches in mid-flight, the pro-con offered much better movement and blocking. I ultimately found that I got more consistent results with the pro-con, but it's definitely admirable that the motion controls work as well as they do; they're certainly a viable option. I'm very curious to see if any competitive players will be using motion controls in the upcoming E3 ARMS tournament.
• Characters: While I initially didn't appreciate them, the character designs really started to grow on me. There's a good amount of variety to their designs and play-styles. I do wish that they had a little bit more personality in their win and loss animations. Hopefully, the full game will feature some additional voice work to give the characters more life.
• Mechanics: There is more depth to this game than meets the eye and I like how switching between characters and mixing and matching weapons allows for a wide variety of strategies. This is a game that requires a fairly high degree of finesse to play, and thus I don't think button-mashers will get very far. As a result, the game doesn't feel as approachable as old-school fighting games or Smash Bros, so I think exciting matches pretty much require two players of equivalent skill and a firm grasp on the systems.
• Music: The theme song is extremely repetitive, but manages to get stuck in my head every time I play!

Overall, I really appreciate the creativity and intricacies of ARMS, but I'm just not sure that it's a game for me. Generally, the games that work for me have to do at least one of the three following things: offer a satisfying single-player campaign, be a good co-op experience with my wife, or keep house guests entertained. From what I've heard from those who have early access to the full game, the single-player is very limited and there's been no mention of co-op. Thus, the whole thing hinges on ARMS's potential as a party game, and at this point, I don't think this game's mechanics lend themselves well to that. From what I can see in the demo, ARMS is a game that really encourages honing one's skills and then going online in search of worthy opponents. By the time I got to the 45-minute mark in my third Test Punch session, I found myself checking my watch; I think I got my fill of online competition from the demo alone. Thus, there's a good chance I'll be passing on the full version of ARMS until it gets a price-drop unless I hear something especially compelling about the content not featured in the demo.