Category: Switch

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Game Ramblings #144 – The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword HD

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: Action RPG
  • Platform: Switch
  • Originally Released On: Wii

Playing remakes is usually a bit weird. They’re typically a mix of nostalgia with enough of a new platform benefit to make replaying worthwhile. Skyward Sword isn’t necessarily different in that regard, although I think a lot of people’s opinion of the original was not great. This one on the other hand benefits from some core things being reimagined – because the Pro Controller is a thing, there’s now a control scheme for this game that isn’t simply motion waggling. While that was a big change that benefited the game a lot, it was interesting seeing where other parts of the game have aged better than others.

The input changes are the obvious focus of this remake, so it’s also the obvious place to start. Waggle sword has been replaced with right analog sword, and in isolation its an interesting and powerful change. The game was able to keep some of the direction based mechanics in an easy to use form factor (ex: scorpion boss requiring specific direction claw strikes). It still has spots where it felt like the responsiveness wasn’t quite there if I didn’t flick at the right speed, but it was a marked improvement over the Wii Remote input system. Nunchuck thrust shield bash has been replaced by a simple click of the left stick. Not having to lift off the movement controls or swing my arms around was a huge boon to shield bashing, and led to me using it to a far greater effect than the original game, despite the fact that my timing still sucks.

On the other hand, having two sticks dedicated to movement and combat means that the camera system is the odd man out. On the one hand, having to hold a button to use the right stick as a camera is still a significant improvement over the original game and other single-analog Zelda experiences. On the other hand, I’m not really entirely sure why they didn’t have an option for a simple L/R camera rotation system. With ZL target locking, having vertical camera movement isn’t super important. Not being able to move the camera at the same time as swinging was definitely a hazard during boss fights to the point where the camera button was frustrating in those situations. It felt like a weird way of trying to blend modern camera systems with a game clearly not built for them when there was likely better intermediate solutions.

On the general gameplay front, I was pleasantly surprised by how much I ended up enjoying the overall meta game. In my original playthrough, I remember being frustrated that there was so much re-traversal of areas that you’d already been to. Compared to previous Zelda games, it felt like a cop out to minimize content production. I don’t know if it’s because Breath of the Wild was so fundamentally different, or that I’ve been playing a whole hell of a lot more Metroidvanias in the last decade, but this go around I really enjoyed it.

Part of this playthrough for me was that I was a lot more intentionally completionist than I typically would be. I was making mental notes of areas that I couldn’t get to, treasures I didn’t have the right tool for, paths I couldn’t make my way through, etc. Because of this, I also had a checklist of new things to do when revisiting an area. Sure there was always a cool new section of the regions to visit, but I also had other things to do – grab heart pieces, grab rupies, grab bugs, get those item upgrades – so revisiting an area never felt like a chore. I think ultimately it comes down to me just playing games differently now than I did at the first release of this game, and the overall meta game setup just hit better for me this go around.

What didn’t hit so well with me was The Imprisoned trilogy of boss fights. The amount of times this thing fell just right to completely block the path, or fell just right to knock me off a cliff DURING ITS OWN CUTSCENE to my doom was obnoxious. I actually died in the second fight because I flippantly started it at low health already, got knocked off the cliff all three times when it collapsed, and died. These fights just didn’t age well, and it was entirely down to bugs.

The other bosses generally worked much better. Some of my frustration with them stemmed from odd camera difficulties that existed in the original game, so in a lot of cases it was expected frustration. I ended up dying my first go around in the final fight against Demise because my shield bash timing was quite frankly that bad. Some of the Ghirahim stuff was mechanically weird in ways I didn’t remember (ex: hold sword to the left as a distraction then QUICKLY do a swipe from the right to damage him?????). By and large though the fights are generally as good as other 3D Zelda games, even if they have the same typically three phase pattern in all of them.

The thing I think I’ve got out of this is that I can recommend Skyward Sword a lot easier than I could before. I always really adored the original game, but I was cognizant of the fact that it was a hard recommendation. The controls were just too inconsistent. However, that’s mostly gone away and the rest of the game has aged well enough that I think it’s worth playing. It’s an interesting transition point between Twilight and Breath where it’s still got the linear dungeon path, but starting to move into some open worldish stuff and upgrade systems, and despite the odd controls it’s a lot of fun to run through. It being readily available on a very popular system also isn’t going to hurt its case. If you’re looking for that classic 3D Zelda itch, you probably won’t do better any time soon.

Also, the cat dog bird thing is a jerk.

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Game Ramblings #137 – Spinch

More Info from Queen Bee Games

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: Switch
  • Also Available On: Windows (Steam, Humble, GOG)

This is kind of a ramblings about Spinch, but also kind of not. On the one hand, this is the type of platformer I really enjoy. Mechanically it’s simple, but it’s extremely tight. It’s difficult because of design, but easy in execution so it all comes down to skill. On the other hand, it’s also the type of game that I increasingly can’t play. Rapid changes in direction on the analog stick and button presses cause flare ups with carpal tunnel problems that limit my ability to execute those mechanics. It puts me in a weird spot where I can basically enjoy the game up until the point where I can’t, but mostly because my hands refuse to let me.

At its core, Spinch is a simple game. You can run, you can jump, you can wall jump, you can dash. That’s it. It puts a simple rule set in place, then provides you with ways to puzzle out trying to not die. Sometimes the puzzle is simply to time out your movement to fit into a gap of hazards. Sometimes the puzzle is hitting buttons to change the path to get through to the finish. Sometimes the puzzle is simply being good at jumping from platform to platform without falling to your death.

It’s all your standard platformer fare, but it’s done so well. Jumping is the right amount of floaty so it doesn’t feel stiff but is extremely predictable in height and distance. Wall jumps are extremely sticky so you can reliably hit them on small edges but still move up a wall extremely fast. Dashes provide an instant speed boost so there’s not a weird sense of lag when you execute it. Starting and stopping has a bit of acceleration in general movement so you have a bit of a weighty feel to the character, despite its small size. It all just feels very good and rewards the player by putting their skill at the forefront, rather than making the difficulty based on complicating things.

However, the downfall of all that is that the tight mechanics often lead to quick and rapid executions. As an example, the water world above has a pretty constant rapid tap of the jump button to work your way through small areas. An ice world had me doing rapid micro adjustments on the analog stick to throttle my movement to avoid falling spikes on slippery floors. A plant-style world had me doing large wall jump sections, involving both micro adjustments on analog to stick to the wall AND rapid jumping to scale it. In a vacuum, these are all really well executed mechanics. However, as someone with carpal tunnel issues, it leads to an inability to play the game beyond a certain point.

These kind of mechanics cause weird problems for me over time. It starts as general fatigue, which is annoying but fine. My general APM starts slowing down as my ability to quickly move my hands goes down. If I keep ignoring it it starts branching into outright pain – generally pretty localized but obvious. If I’ve gotten to this point without stopping, then I already know I screwed up. If I keep ignoring it past that, I start outright losing feeling in my fingers and then I know the next day will not be fun. At that point it’s not just gaming that becomes problematic – simply spending the next day programming becomes a hassle.

Avoiding these kinds of repetitive motion mechanics is something that I’ve put a lot of thought in because I ultimately want to make games that the widest range of people can play with the best integration of skill. However, some games just can’t do that on their own. Skill-based platformers are one of those. Mario type platformers avoid these problems because they’re often more about the experience or player flow over tight execution. They have some flexibility in safe timing or stretches of minimal changes in inputs. However, games like Spinch? Super Meat Boy? Celeste? They don’t exist if you move them closer to Mario. They simply are as good as they are because they mechanically exist as they do. At this point I don’t know that I have a good path towards a solution here besides the obvious ones – get surgery and solve the problem, use something like an Xbox accessibility controller to get the motion away from my thumbs, or accept it as reality and play these games in small doses to get through that sort of videogame craving that comes up.

So far, I’ve leaned into the last option.

In any case, Spinch is another really tight skill-based platformer that I think is worth checking out, despite my carpal tunnel problems. This one hits that same need for me as Super Meat Boy does. I can jump into these games without thinking, quickly get back into playing shape, and hammer out a few levels before popping it back on the shelf. They exist in that place where they’re good because of simplicity and work because those simple mechanics were polished until they were perfect, leaving a game without fluff.

I just wish my hands were a bit more cooperative…

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Game Ramblings #131 – Bowser’s Fury

More Info from Nintendo

  • Genre: Platformer
  • Platform: Switch

I’ll make this simple – Super Mario 3D World is still fun and still worth playing. If you buy the cart just for that game, you’ll be happy. However, Bowser’s Fury is easily the more interesting part of the package. It’s an entire experiment in what Mario could be as an open world game. Some of it works well, some of it doesn’t, but it’s an interesting look into what the future of the series could potentially be.

It took me a while to really put my finger on what this game felt like, but it hit me that this feels like playing Super Mario Galaxy, minus the gravity manipulation. As you run around the world, you hit cat gates that act as the entries to individual objective areas. Each of these areas acts similar to a galaxy in that you go through it multiple times to get shines, and each shine has its own little modifications to the environment of the section. Where the magic comes in is that there’s no load times. You finish a shine and can go wherever you want. The next time you come back to the area, a new shine is available and the modifications to the environment in the area are already active.

From a general game rhythm perspective, it ends up being a sped up version of Galaxy. It’s such a small functional change, but not having to drop out of the world speeds up the game so much. You finish a shine and just keep going. There’s no transition back to an overworld or hub. There’s no waiting on loads and title screens. You just run and go. It helps that some shines are also available for partial credit as you run around doing others. For example, each area has a cat badge collection shine that can be finished at any time, including in the middle of working on other shines. It all feeds back into keeping the player moving as much as possible, rather than having to hop back and forth.

This kind of feeds back into what I talked about in the Ys IX ramblings, but this ends up being a game that just keeps you moving, and it’s what I’m most excited about in a potential open world Mario game. Super Mario Odyssey did a great job of packing the individual worlds with a ton of stuff. While those worlds were big and fun, they were also distinctly separate. Taking the scale and scope of things to do and packing it into a future open world (maybe an entire open Mushroom Kingdom?) is something that I never really thought was possible. After playing Bowser’s Fury, I think there’s a nugget of possibility there.

On the other hand, the Bowser part of this experience is just kind of average. As a mechanic tied into the story it serves its purpose but it just isn’t that fun. Bowser pops up periodically to basically just fuck shit up. He throws a bunch of crap around that basically serves to annoy you and then you either fight him as giant Mario or he goes away after a short period of time. There’s also a number of shines that require Bowser’s fury attacks to break some blocks and give access to shines. It just ends up feeling like an unnecessary distraction from the exploration. In general I’d expect this to not exist in a larger open world Mario game, so I’m not overly worried about its existence, but I could deal without the player friction it causes.

However, the boss fight portion of it is fun. Fighting as giant Mario vs Godzilla Bowser is really cool. Mechanically, it’s not that far off of normal Mario fights, but suddenly being as big as an entire level section is fun. Picking up a giant rock spear and chucking it at Bowser is fun. Trying to whack him out of a side spin with your cat attacks is fun. Like most Mario boss fights it isn’t complex, but it’s extremely satisfying.

This is distinctly an experiment. It’s absolutely a pack-in for the port of Super Mario 3D World, but it’s a fascinating way for Nintendo to experiment. They can sell the main game on its own, but still get a lot of player feedback in a way that doesn’t allow for failure. If people don’t like the experiment, no harm, they still have the main game. However, if people do like the experiment? You gave them a great bonus experience and got a ton of good feedback.

Given how well this one turned out, I wouldn’t be that surprised if the next Mario is open world. This one felt instantly recognizable, but new at the same time. Having a very Galaxy-style environment setup without load times is fresh and interesting in a way that surprised me. I could live without the Bowser mechanics, but give me a game with the rest of this experiment and I suspect I’ll be a happy camper.