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Some Thoughts On Video Games: March of the Nintendo Switch

Not sure what happened but these first few months have been an almost constant rollout of awesome games. No one person could play them all but I'm glad to see so many developers putting countless hours into creating excellent games. As the title implies I did pick up a Switch. Doesn't mean that is the first game I'm going to talk about though since my Drakengard playthroughs could only lead up to one thing.

Neir: The bullet hell elements is a neat addition to the boss fights. No real consistency with the screenshots I picked out this time other than the first one. Oh it's the moon face thing, fishing and talking to some random npc.

Super Bomberman R : I'll just say the viewpoint of the story mode didn't annoy me at all. Doesn't make the main single player mode very fun, though... The in-game shop feels like it is built to take forever to unlock everything which is annoying.

The Legend Of Zelda Breath Of The Wild : Even if this is a new style of Zelda game the basis of why people like this version still alines with the old.

Mighty Morphin Power Rangers : Mega Battle Not much to say here other than the visuals look nice.

Waku Waku 7 : After seeing a few people mention how awesome this game was I had to pick it up on the Switch. Turns out they weren't wrong and this is a great little fighting game that I never heard of until now. It may have a few little weird kinks like the unblockable specials being impossible to use but in general, it's just a colorful fighting game.

Nam 1975 : I picked this up because it looks similar to the GI JOE arcade game. Turns out I was mostly right other than the fact this scrolls to the side.

Snipperclips : The visuals is half of the reason this game is awesome. Just look how cute everything looks!

World Heroes Perfect : Who knew the Switch would become my very own portable Neo Geo console. I've played the first game but didn't know about this version.

List items

Nier

Nier is one of the few games that manages to throw enough hints around about the larger story to incentivise the player to play through it multiple times. After seeing the first ending again I really wanted to start another play-through since a lot of stuff was brought up that was not explained. A good hook is a rare thing in video games since for most one playthrough is all you'll ever see. So I'm glad to see a game that manages to pull off that well with interesting endings to go along with the narrative.
Other than the unique story the gameplay also follows up with some distinct gameplay styles. In general, most of it is simple hack and slash combat. While still including stuff like my newfound love of parries and it mixes up the combat a bit with the different magical skills. Flinging plasma lances at enemies is cool but randomly turning the game into a text adventure is some next level madness. Why not turn an entire dungeon into Diablo-like dungeon crawler too? All of these little quirks never overstay their welcome and it just cements why this game is memorable.
At the same time, all the different gameplay elements do not mesh together very well. Like the platforming sections or the infamous fishing. The standard moment to moment action does get a bit repetitive along with the aburd amount of side quests require collecting a ton of items.
So yeah the game isn't perfect and it reiqures the player to dig past some rough spots to see what it has to offer. What seems to be a simple story about a father trying to save his daughter goes so many places. Glad to see this still holds up 7 years later.
Super Bomberman R

Obviously, I didn't buy a Switch for this game but I felt compelled to buy at least one other retail game. Going in I knew this wasn't going to be that great. It easily met that expectation. But before going into a bit more detail let me set up what is in this video game. The devs knew what this game was about by putting the battle mode in the first slot. Classic 4-8 player Bomberman action that continues to be a fun time if you have enough friends around to play it. Then the story mode is next, which follows the Bomberman brothers/sisters as they fly to 6 different planets to stop the Bugger army's takeover of the solar system. Those are the two main modes which is a little light for a 50$ game these days.
I certainly see what they were trying to recapture with this release. A revamped take on a classic video game has worked before. Yet if I'm honest most Bomberman games had really bad single player modes. Going through a bunch of stages where the main goal is to kill everything just gets boring pretty quick. Stack on the fact that this might have the most annoying boss AI I've ever seen in a long time and you just stepped into bomber hell. At least this is mitigated slightly by some silly animated cutscenes that give the game a bit of life. Plus the other mode is a lot better.
Multiplayer battle is still a fun time. Blasting through the map to set up a bomb perfectly to blow up your opponent is always delightful. It may not be 60 FPS but the game runs fine in offline mode. While the online is a unplayable mess that just makes me sad. A patch is coming so I wonder if that'll fix anything.
Overall this game is a bad value for just about anyone. Especially at its current price. Much better off going back to pick up a classic title instead if you need that Bomberman fix.
The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

At this point, I feel like everyone has already said their piece on Zelda. The newfound focus on exploring the world with many different things to do in it works really well. Constantly seeing some new little thing you didn't expect was possible is why this game is so beloved. Sure the fact it is a Zelda game factors in slightly but it really does feel like this game stands on its own.
Even the narrative is told in a different way. Link wakes up after a 100-year slumber to a world he doesn't remember. Only an old man who is waiting outside is his only guide to a bigger world. Overall other than setting up the fact he needs to beat Gannon none of the story is forced onto the player. Having to go out to find areas the bring up memories is a neat way to tell a story. Plus since everything is left up to the player to find it isn't even vital to completing the game. Maybe you want to do the dungeons or the many shrines that scattered around the landscape? Everything is accessible from the start making it possible to do whatever you want.
The controls work well for any situation although it would be nice to remap them. Plus I pretty much have to bring up the fact the weapons break. Early on this is a huge issue since it is really easy to use up the base weapons quickly. After a while, it becomes a non-issue since it feels like stronger weapons last longer plus I was able to upgrade how many weapons I could hold. Both of these issues are minor annoyances that didn't dimish the fun I was having with the game. Yet rain is most likely the most annoying thing ever. Trying to climb anything while it's raining is an impossible task without upgrading the stamina bar. Sure I was able to work around it but it just seems like something made to make the player sad.
Overall this is an awesome video game. With this year being packed with a crazy amount of great video games it should be interesting to see what is going to come out on top this year. At this rate I'm going to have a 10 list before June rolls around.
Saban's Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Mega Battle

This game is a low budget beat em up. It doesn't try to be anything but that. Between the visuals, story and the gameplay it is believable that this could have been a better looking Super Nintendo game. Going in knowing that fact I could only really see this being fun if you play through it with a friend. After the first few levels, you'll just be beating up the same 5 enemies until the 3 section where a boss shows up. Nothing really wrong with it since I did enjoy playing through this.
Other than every type of gameplay being repetitive after seeing it for the first time the bosses are kinda just annoying. On foot they could be summed up by watching a pattern play out then punch them 3 times. Since the bosses are only vulnerable for a few moments it just prolongs the fight for no real reason. At least it is possible to level up each Power Ranger and earn some new attacks. Yet after one playthrough, I doubt anyone would want to play through this again.
So really all I'm saying is that this is an average beat em up that can still be enjoyed for a little while. Would have been nice if they put more work into this but this really looks like a project with a very strict budget.
Waku Waku 7

This game also makes me curious to see if Sunsoft did any other fighting games since this one is pretty good. After booting this up for the first time I knew this was going to be pretty crazy. Story wise this game doesn't really explain anything since all you need to know is that a bunch of anime archetypes need to beat each other up to get their wishes granted by a fairy.
Like the name implies the player has to pick between 7 different characters. They all use a similar simple Ryu like move set although all their attacks have different properties. For example, the JoJo stand in uses a whip and a cat from the sidelines to attack his foes while My Neighbor Totoro clone is all about hitting hard slowly. So even if it is rather simple to control everyone it doesn't diminish the gameplay any.
The biggest issue this game had was the fact that the colors didn't match and now that has been patched so it looks great. So really I think this is just a fun game that is worth playing.
NAM-1975

Like the screens shots imply this is a side scrolling shooter. Not much to explain since you just shoot stuff and get power ups. I will say the fact that this has a dodge roll is pretty awesome. Other than Wild Guns I don't remember very many games with that kind of mechanic around this time. The music isn't anything special but this does have voice acting. Doesn't sound that great but I bet that would have been kinda impressive if I ever played this on a Neo Geo cabinet.
The one other thing I would like to mention is the interesting yet very evil way the developers decided to do the final boss. So if you run out of lives in the final fight you will get a bad ending. Thus forcing you to put in a bunch of quarters to maybe get back to the point where you could get a better ending. Very devious and I'm pretty sure it would just make everyone mad instead of the intended effect. Other than that it's a nice little shoot up em. Might be worth checking out if you're interested in checking out old arcade games.
Snipperclips: Cut It Out, Together!

I don't need to tell you why Snipperclips is great. Looking at it should tell you everything you need to know. Sure the upbeat soundtrack fits well with the visuals and the puzzles aren't super complex making it fun to play with anyone too. The only real downside is that this needs to be played with a friend. Going solo isn't that fun compared to working together with someone else to solve a puzzle. If that is something that sounds possible then this game is worth picking up.
World Heroes Perfect

Can't say that World Heroes is a great fighting game but it did require some investigate thanks to the SNES port. Turns out by the point this game was released they put it all together to make a solid video game. All of the different characters make the cast look unique. None of the special moves are hard to pull off making it really easy to just pick up and play.
I've never been much of an online player so that fact that these releases don't have that isn't a big issue. But it is certainly something that I should mention. In the end, I ended up liking every arcade game I picked up on switch. Sure it isn't the reason I picked up one but on some level this helps make a limited launch line up look a little better.