Switch Games End of Year Wrapup
Reverie: Sweet As Edition (Switch) - A retro Zelda-like that’s short and pretty decent. Not as good as Lenna’s Inception in terms of cleverness in the exploration, probably on par with Blossom Tales: The Sleeping King for in-dungeon puzzles. The hitboxes can be a little odd in places, which makes combat unnecessarily more difficult. I did like that one of the items was just a big rock (with googly eyes!) that you can put on switches or block lasers with. I was irritated that the postgame bonus dungeon doesn’t appear to have any puzzles at all, it’s just an enemy/miniboss rush. It took me about 4 hours to play as much as I wanted (I didn’t hunt down every feather or beat every minigame), which was worth the $4 I paid for this on sale.
New Super Mario Brothers U Deluxe (Switch) - I’ve played my fair share of Mario games, particularly 2D Mario games, and this one seems surprisingly hard to me. Even with the “easy” characters (Toadette/Peach can float, Nabbit can’t be harmed by monsters) it’s a tricky game. I suspect the fact that I don’t like the wall-jump mechanism (which high-level play depends on) and the general slipperiness (moreso than earlier Mario games) plays a role. The multiplayer is REALLY hard, because the characters not only can interact, but they bounce off of each other. Attempts to play this as family multiplayer (like we did with Kirby Star Allies) were generally a failure because even the “bubble” mechanism for weaker players to float past tricky jumps wasn’t enough to overcome the Jethrien’s poor platforming skills. (ARR did better, but he’s still learning.) I played most of the areas myself, didn’t bother with star coin or secret level completion. I didn’t love the variations on the power-ups either: The baby yoshis that never grow up are far too easy to lose and the leaf is inferior to the SMB3 racoon tail. My overall impression, from the blend of elements from SMB3, SMW and NSMB, is that this should have been called “More Super Mario Brothers”; there isn’t much new and it’s aimed at veteran players.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition (Switch) - The original game’s claim to fame was that it was the prettiest goddamn game on the Gamecube, and this tries very hard to maintain that. That said, I think they really improved the playability of the Crystal Chronicles formula with the later games, when they added jumping and more significant in-dungeon puzzles. The other noteworthy thing about the original was the really (unnecessarily) awkward multiplayer mechanism. This version replaces the need for everyone to own a GBA and connector cable with the need for everyone to own a Switch and copy of the game. (I actually waited and bought this on extreme sale because the lack of local multiplayer killed a lot of the utility this had for me. If I could play it with Jethrien and ARR for family game night, we’d probably put 50 hours into it.)
Collection of Mana (Switch) - I discussed Secret of Mana in its own post; this was a convenient way to play it 3-player with my family. Final Fantasy Adventure is basically unchanged from the original; the only additions were a bunch of display color options and mapping Start and Select menus to X and Y. I love this game, and reviewed the remake five years ago, but I can easily play it on any of my emulator devices. (Also, I think enemies spontaneously teleport more in this version.) I made several tries at Trials of Mana, both with and without ARR. I had forgotten the stupid tact they took for the subscreen, which is slow to load and specific to each character. You can play the Switch version with a single Joy-Con (helpful when you want to play two player), but then you don’t have a Select button, which means you can’t change characters on the subscreen. I think the issue is that I’m just not as excited about this game, which I didn’t play until late college, as I am about the ones with strong nostalgia value. And I think my biggest complaint about this collection is the lack of documentation: The online “manual” just tells you what the buttons do and give a link to the official website. When we played the Switch version of Secret of Mana, I pulled out the original manual for the SNES version (which I still own) along with the strategy guide and Nintendo Power issues. The first two games came with maps, item and weapon lists and partial walkthroughs, which the games expect you to have. Trials definitely needed documentation on what each class can do, when and how you get magic, how the item storage screen works, etc etc. Overall worth the money for the convenient multiplayer, but otherwise emulation has big advantages.
New Super Mario Brothers U Deluxe (Switch) - I’ve played my fair share of Mario games, particularly 2D Mario games, and this one seems surprisingly hard to me. Even with the “easy” characters (Toadette/Peach can float, Nabbit can’t be harmed by monsters) it’s a tricky game. I suspect the fact that I don’t like the wall-jump mechanism (which high-level play depends on) and the general slipperiness (moreso than earlier Mario games) plays a role. The multiplayer is REALLY hard, because the characters not only can interact, but they bounce off of each other. Attempts to play this as family multiplayer (like we did with Kirby Star Allies) were generally a failure because even the “bubble” mechanism for weaker players to float past tricky jumps wasn’t enough to overcome the Jethrien’s poor platforming skills. (ARR did better, but he’s still learning.) I played most of the areas myself, didn’t bother with star coin or secret level completion. I didn’t love the variations on the power-ups either: The baby yoshis that never grow up are far too easy to lose and the leaf is inferior to the SMB3 racoon tail. My overall impression, from the blend of elements from SMB3, SMW and NSMB, is that this should have been called “More Super Mario Brothers”; there isn’t much new and it’s aimed at veteran players.
Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Remastered Edition (Switch) - The original game’s claim to fame was that it was the prettiest goddamn game on the Gamecube, and this tries very hard to maintain that. That said, I think they really improved the playability of the Crystal Chronicles formula with the later games, when they added jumping and more significant in-dungeon puzzles. The other noteworthy thing about the original was the really (unnecessarily) awkward multiplayer mechanism. This version replaces the need for everyone to own a GBA and connector cable with the need for everyone to own a Switch and copy of the game. (I actually waited and bought this on extreme sale because the lack of local multiplayer killed a lot of the utility this had for me. If I could play it with Jethrien and ARR for family game night, we’d probably put 50 hours into it.)
Collection of Mana (Switch) - I discussed Secret of Mana in its own post; this was a convenient way to play it 3-player with my family. Final Fantasy Adventure is basically unchanged from the original; the only additions were a bunch of display color options and mapping Start and Select menus to X and Y. I love this game, and reviewed the remake five years ago, but I can easily play it on any of my emulator devices. (Also, I think enemies spontaneously teleport more in this version.) I made several tries at Trials of Mana, both with and without ARR. I had forgotten the stupid tact they took for the subscreen, which is slow to load and specific to each character. You can play the Switch version with a single Joy-Con (helpful when you want to play two player), but then you don’t have a Select button, which means you can’t change characters on the subscreen. I think the issue is that I’m just not as excited about this game, which I didn’t play until late college, as I am about the ones with strong nostalgia value. And I think my biggest complaint about this collection is the lack of documentation: The online “manual” just tells you what the buttons do and give a link to the official website. When we played the Switch version of Secret of Mana, I pulled out the original manual for the SNES version (which I still own) along with the strategy guide and Nintendo Power issues. The first two games came with maps, item and weapon lists and partial walkthroughs, which the games expect you to have. Trials definitely needed documentation on what each class can do, when and how you get magic, how the item storage screen works, etc etc. Overall worth the money for the convenient multiplayer, but otherwise emulation has big advantages.