You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/dragon-quest-builders-2.1077/

To build is to blaspheme, so say the Children of Hargon. Worshipping destruction and chaos, the act of creation itself is outlawed and forbidden, builders imprisoned for their crimes. Waking up behind bars in a monster-occupied ship, en route to your demise, your services are required. Though the crew shun you, your utility in repairing the ship after a recent storm is too great to simply ignore, and it’s here you learn the basics. On the orders of a skeletal captain, you make some torches, repair the deck, and have a little play fight with one of the crew. Acting as a fairly natural tutorial to get those who skipped the first game up to speed, it sets an initial light-hearted tone for the game. This shanty crew, evil though they might be, really came to grow on me in the short time I had with them. Quirky, fun, and just a great cast of characters to be around; I almost wanted them to succeed in their cause, even if it was destroying everything. After maybe half an hour of getting to know these lovely creatures, they die. They all die. They die and it’s heartbreaking, and I wasn’t ready for it. Your final test before being ready to really kick things off with the game comes in the form of a storm, requiring you to plug holes in the ship. Though you try your best, the ship sinks, its only survivors being yourself and a particularly vocal and moderately less-fun-than-the-monsters woman. As you look around the beach, you see bodies lined up; you interact with them and they get washed away by the ocean. I just didn’t see it coming from a game like this, something so unexpectedly powerful and saddening to kick off such an incredible and grand adventure.

The island you’re washed up onto is the legendary and aptly named Isle of Awakening, acting as a hub area and larger objective for the rest of the game. It’s here you meet two amnesiac characters, Malroth and an ethereal bearded fellow assumed to be the island’s guardian. What’s interesting about this whole setup is how as the player, you’re fed more information than the characters in-game. For those who’ve played Dragon Quest 2, or those who paid more attention than I did to the opening cutscene, Malroth is the name of the demon summoned by Hargon. Your hero-to-be builder is ultimately teaming up and growing with and thanks to the unknowing lord of destruction, and it puts you in an interesting mindset. As a character, he’s rowdy, over the top, and as his title may suggest, excels in destructive activities. He’s a great ally considering all these things, and functionally he does his job well. Tagging along on your adventures, he gains experience and levels up alongside your character, and generally does well in assisting in whatever you’re trying to do. If you attack an enemy, he runs in to help. If you cut down a tree, he’ll go to nearby trees to get you some more wood. You get a sense of him really trying his best for you, which only goes to add to the conflict in his character. Will this development only serve to make him stronger? Will I need to fight him when the game comes to a close? This kind of player omnipotence does well in fuelling this kind of debate as the game progresses, despite it not going out of its way to present such arguments. It gives you snippets of information to ponder and obsess over as the larger story unravels, and as it goes, the larger story doesn’t disappoint.

Our favourite bearded spirit sees your building potential and sets you off with your larger goal of developing the Isle of Awakening as you see fit. This task serves as the backbone of the game, and with ownership of the island falling to you, you really are free to do as you please. Whether you want to dig up a desert or deface an otherwise nice looking temple, the ball’s in your court, but it won’t be long until you hit a wall; you can’t really make much in the beginning. Your island is barren and void of greenery, and you’re still a novice when it comes to making things. If you want to both grow as a builder and find ways to get your island looking as nice as possible, it won’t be long until you give into the plot and find yourself progressing to Furrowfield, the ‘land of verdant vegetation’. Eager to find a way to get your island a little greener, it’s an ideal place to start looking, but it isn’t going to be easy, not with the islanders being devout followers of the questionable Children of Hargon.

Each island you visit has a different twist and larger objective, but you’re generally looking at a cycle of building a town by completing requests of the villagers. As you complete these requests, they’ll generally become more open to the idea of building, abandon their faith, and attract new residents. These residents will then join in with the island’s quirk, helping out with things like farming and mining to give you time to focus on more interesting endeavours, and there really is a surprising amount to be found. With the terrain not randomly generated as you’d see in the ever-popular blocky superstar Minecraft, you get a real sense of caring and thoughtfulness; the world in its entirety feels intentional, and that knowledge compels you to seek out its finer details, something both to the game’s merit and detriment.

I think the merits of such design are clear; there are secrets, quirks, oddities, and just really nice landscapes and scenery as a whole. If you see an island in the distance, you know it’s there for a reason. If you see a monument or a building, you’re drawn to it if only to find out its significance, but it’s here where the game finds itself confused. You’ll find interesting things, and you might even spot an interesting-looking NPC, but in its attempt to present a linear narrative, it loses some of the charm it would otherwise have. These NPCs littered in each corner of the map pull you in to investigate, but if you find them before your time, they’ll simply refuse to talk to you. Every single one, the same line: “Scarlet tries to strike up a conversation… But there’s no response.” It’s a real shame. If the game were designed to be a little more flexible and allow you to recruit NPCs out of order, the experience would feel far more unique and rewarding. Even keeping these NPCs despawned until you need to meet them would have been a viable choice in keeping the player engaged, the single line snapping you back to reality whether you like it or not. It isn’t an experience-destroying negative, but it irritates me to see such a brilliant and otherwise thoroughly thought-out and designed game fall short in what to me seems like an obvious way. You get used to it, sure, but you shouldn’t have to. It’s not as though exploration is useless though, even with the uncooperative NPCs. You’ll find building puzzles, hidden chests, enemies with useful drops, and even powerful optional bosses if you’re up for the challenge. The world is a joy to navigate and I really encourage anybody playing to take the time to do so.

When you’re finished taking in the sights and want to return to the story, you’ll find a number of ways the game gauges your progression. First, you have your character level. Gaining XP by beating up monsters with your companion Malroth, you can think of this as personal growth. As you level up, you’ll gain more health and access to recipes that’ll help you beat things up quicker, such as weapons for both of your characters. Something I really found myself fond of was the level cap enforced at each stage of the game. On the Furrowfield, you’ll find your level capped to 10, but as you progress, this limit is gradually raised. It means for people like me who spent 20 hours building a fortress before progressing, you won’t feel too powerful, also giving the game control over the kinds of weapon recipes it gives you. The recipes for the first ten levels will require items you can gather on Furrowfield, up to the next limit will require items of the next island; the game never leaves you in a position where you don’t have the resources to do what you need to, unless the next task is to be gathering them. It’s well-paced and again, well thought out in giving you a satisfying experience over a long period of play.

The second means of progression is directly related to your progress on each island, a level for your village. As mentioned earlier, as the village grows, you’ll get more villagers and more eager hands to help. Growth happens through completing requests, providing you with gratitude, which can then be spent on levelling up the village when set thresholds are reached. Though requests are a significant way of getting gratitude, there are plenty of other ways, each rewarding your effort in its own way. If a villager sleeps on a bed, you’ll get a little gratitude each day as they wake up. If you set up a place for them to eat, you’ll get a little gratitude when they take some food. If you set up a kitchen, a toilet, a bath, if you have fields they can tend to, they’ll reward you with gratitude. The game encourages you to play and build to your heart’s content, and the collection of gratitude is, for the lack of a better word, incredibly gratifying. When you’ve progressed enough for the chapter to come to a close, you’ll head back to the Isle of Awakening with some new allies and the recipes and resources you’ve gained along the way, and once you start building there, you’ll again be rewarded with gratitude. With no formal village to speak of, it’s used a little differently however.

Once your time in Furrowfield has come to an end, the game opens up with some really nice options. You have a new means of movement in the glider, but perhaps more significantly, you gain access to both multiplayer and Explorer’s Shores. Explorer’s Shores are small islands scattered around the larger world map. Paying a set amount of gratitude earned at the Isle of Awakening, you’re able to visit these islands as much as you’d like, but unlike your main ‘story islands’, no progress is saved here. Your objective is detached from the rest of the game, ultimately serving as a scavenger hunt for a pre-set list of items, the reward entirely worth the effort. For each hunt completed, you get unlimited access to a specified material, and with two hunts available for each island, you’ll be wanting to develop the Isle of Awakening if only to access them. Unlimited wood meant I no longer had to worry about the dwindling tree populous, unlimited grass fibre meant I could stop slashing at every piece of grass in my path. The slow transition to a more creative way of playing is something I really appreciated, the game again paced brilliantly as to present these unlimited items after the areas where they were previously commonplace. Furrowfield rich in trees and other types of greenery, you’d be less inclined to explore and gather materials if you had unlimited access to wood. Coming back to the Isle of Awakening however, it’s easy to feel limited in what you can do. Best of all, these islands are entirely optional. If you’d rather a purer life of survival and gathering, the game will respect your choice and leave you be, but for those wanting to create on a grander stage, such unlimited access will be welcomed.

Multiplayer is a little harder for me to comment on without anybody I know having the game prior to it launching, though I can still go over a few of the basics. You gain access to it after returning from Furrowfield, and allows you to play either online or via local wireless with three other people. When playing with them, you can run around and build the Isle of Awakening together. With the online functioning using the Switch friend list, I’m also assuming cross-platform multiplayer isn’t possible. I wish I could give a little more information on this, but I can at least say I’m thoroughly looking forward to playing with others after the game has officially launched.

One hot topic when it comes to the Switch version of the game is, quite understandably, just how well it performs, and it’s a mixed bag. To my untrained eye, the game largely feels incredibly nice to play, not noticing any kind of slowdown in the general activities of building and gathering. Where things started to get choppy however was after I acquired the glider. As a fast means of getting around, I used it to do a lap of each new island, allowing me to have a fuller idea of my surroundings. In this swift movement through the scenery, the game struggled at times to keep up, stuttering noticeably, but never to a particularly concerning limit, and certainly not frequent to the point of it being a larger issue. If you’re more sensitive to this kind of thing than myself, I encourage you to check out the free demo and try pushing the game as best you can.

All in all, Dragon Quest Builders 2 is phenomenal. With its fantastic sense of progression, fun writing, and endless building opportunities, it is a perfect game to lose yourself in, hours melting away as you decide you just want to build one more wall. Though slightly held back by uncooperative NPCs and occasional performance hiccups, it stands out to me as one of the best titles released for the Switch to date. It’s a game I thoroughly enjoyed, and hope many more will enjoy in the coming days and weeks.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/super-mario-maker-2.1071/

For years, Mario fans sat and appreciated Nintendo’s efforts, each new game bringing with it a degree of charm and unique brilliance. Between new power ups, new levels, or even just a fresh appearance on a new console, fans watched, waited, anticipated, and enjoyed—but the fans wanted more. They wanted to break the shackles of Nintendo’s design principles, they wanted to torture others with horrible ideas, they wanted to do it for themselves, and with the release of Mario Maker on the Wii U, they did all that and more. The Switch’s popularity ever-prominent, and a slurry of the Wii U’s greatest titles finding themselves ported for the wider audience, it was only a matter of time until the level creation toolkit received the same treatment; not as a port, but as a sequel.

What’s New?

There’s a deceptively impressive amount added to the original experience. It’s easy to break it down to a single player story mode and a few new parts, but there’s just so much depth to each individual element. Starting with course parts, you now have on/off switches, blocks, tracks, and conveyor belts that can be toggled using them, snake blocks, swinging claws, seesaws, Banzai Bills, icicles, twisters, angry suns, less angry moons, Dry Bones shells to ride in, the ever-pitiful Boom Boom, and finally after almost four years of waiting, the much-anticipated slopes! It’s a good amount to rattle off in a list, but that’s not to speak of the options and creativity each part provides both in tandem with one another and existing parts. Seesaws can be made into catapults, swinging claws can carry drop all manner of hell onto an unsuspecting Mario, twisters can be made to block entry to pipes, and the moon essentially doubles the amount of course themes at your disposal. The same joy and unparalleled creativity of the first game is here in full force, now with more to play and interact with.

On top of these parts, you also get four new course themes and an entirely new game style. Each addition feels justified in creating an ultimate Mario package; icicles feel at home in the snow theme, twisters and angry suns in the desert, with the forest being unique with its customisable water level, and the sky being something I’m more surprised wasn’t in the first game. While most of these are functionally identical, it’s at night they truly come into their own. With a simple toggle in the menu, each theme can be switched over to its associated night theme, meaning each of the ten available options has a visually stunning counterpart for a total of 20 themes. What makes these stand out is, quite unsurprisingly for a Mario game, their individual gimmicks. In the forest, the water turns to poison, in the sky, gravity is lessened, in the castle, Mario swims like in a water level, with the caveat that the enemies walk as if they’re on land. With each one, there are a myriad of new possibilities to explore and discover, each item, block, enemy, and gizmo taking on fantastic and unexpected properties.

The new game style, a 2D take on the yet-to-be-ported Wii U classic Super Mario 3D World, is every bit brilliant and unique as the other additions; perhaps even more so, with you being locked into the style after starting your course. If you want to change style later you’ll have to start from scratch, contrary to the flexibility of the other four styles. Is there a good reason for this? It’s hard to say. At a fundamental level, the 3DW theme is different. Mario has a completely different set of mobility options, you can stand on Thwomps, you have interaction happening between the foreground and background, really hammering home this is a three dimensional game superimposed onto a two dimensional space. You also have a good set of new parts, many of which originating from the original 3D World game. Each enemy stands out for their properties: Skipsqueaks try to jump with Mario, Hop-Chops act like trampolines when jumped on, Ant Troopers are bouncy, Stingbys can fly through other objects to chase Mario. Clear pipes are the standout new part for the style, giving you means of fast passage from one area to another, but also allowing enemies and items to travel in a way not previously possible. As a whole, it’s fantastic fun, but it’s not without fault.

While it’s easy to look at what makes the 3DW style unique as a reason for it being so standalone, you can look at any one of the other four styles in a similar light. Each one has its own signature movement options, unique powerups, and specific object interactions. What makes them so different to 3DW is how everything matches up. In Mario Bros 3 you have the boot and the raccoon suit, which parallels to Yoshi and the cape in Mario World. While enemies may act differently, they’re still present throughout the four styles, and if they’re not, there’s something in its place. Levels may not play the same way after switching style, but they can be adapted. With 3DW, you not only have added content with no parallels, but also content that simply isn’t present. You lose so much that at first you find yourself fighting with the game to get what you want.

The first level I made with the retail version revolved around being able to stand on a Thwomp to cross lava; it was made in the 3DW style. I wanted to create obstacles and challenges that had to be beaten for the Thwomp to be able to progress, and in turn, allow for your own progression, the limitation being that I needed the Thwomp to wait for Mario to complete a section. My first thought was to add a one-way gate, meaning you could move through it, but it’d stop the Thwomp from being able to return to its original position. Sadly, there are no one-way gates. My next thought was an on/off block, and again, no dice, despite the presence of the on/off switch itself. Again and again I ran into small problems and irritations from just how much wasn’t there. It was undeniably frustrating, and when getting started with the game, it’s something that took time to adjust to. Moving past this initial barrier however was almost liberating. It forced me into the mindset of recognising limitations and being creative in working around them, something I feel is greatly in the spirit of the game. To a lesser extent, it’s something you can feel in the other styles. With so many different interactions to consider, it’s easy to expect something to work one way and it simply not. This cycle of expectation, realisation, and improvisation became my fundamental work ethic and drove me into far more creative and satisfying solutions. To be clear, I still would prefer if many of the missing elements were present in the 3DW style, but their absence isn’t as much of a limiting factor as I initially thought it would be. For each missing part, there’s ten workarounds, ten brilliantly odd things to be noticed about the new things, ten things you never knew because you never had to know them. It could have been better, there could have been more, but it’s not as though your options are so narrow as for these to be a necessity.

The 3DW style isn’t the alone in lacking certain parts however, both Amiibo costumes and fan-favourite ‘weird Mario’ missing in action. To some extent, I can understand the lack of Amiibo costumes, or at least a good number of them. With so many of them featuring characters from other games, real-life celebrities, and even branded cars, there would be an incredible amount of paperwork and hoops to jump through to even come close to matching the variety the first game had by the end. Even with this in mind though, I am sad to see there be nothing left here. Even replacing the vast catalogue of options with one or two choice Marios would have been nice, if only for the unique property of having small Mario’s hitbox with the ability to break blocks. It isn’t the worst thing they could have done, but the lack of Jumpu Girl will be a hit for many. Weird Mario is an abomination and deserved to be cut. 

With the timed delivery of new parts scrapped for this game, it’s easy to be overwhelmed when you first start playing. Though Nintendo provide a really thorough and handy set of tutorials to assist in good level design, they also included a far more natural way of introducing ideas and new elements with the game’s story mode. As stories go, it’s as barebones as you might expect it to be: the castle is completed, a misplaced reset rocket happens to be launched, and Mario has to collect coins to rebuild the castle bit by bit. It isn’t much to go on, but it’s both charming in its presentation and ample in setting up a satisfying gameplay loop. Beat levels to collect coins, start building a new part of the castle with those coins, beat levels to progress in building, rinse and repeat with new levels. This mode had me hooked from the start in the same way a free to play game hooks me. It has each individual element: you pay for an upgrade, you wait for it to be completed, you get more content when finished to then upgrade more. The basic formula is the same, but where a free to play game would have you wait time or pay money, Mario Maker 2 has you play levels, with each upgrade requiring a different amount of levels beaten before completion. It amused me where it really shouldn’t have that a game nowadays is designed in a way as to encourage you to play, in oppose to monopolising monotony. It’s what you’d expect of a first party Nintendo game, but the parallels to me are what makes it so addicting. That you can see it come together visually in the castle being built is just a bonus.

There is one thing of special note in the story mode, this being levels that you aren’t able to make yourself. Though most of what you play is entirely recreatable, you come across a few that you simply don’t have the tools for. One level for example had a clear condition of you holding a heavy stone as you reach the goal, this stone limiting Mario’s trademark jumping and being a general inconvenience; another you had to escort a Toad to the goal. It’s entirely possible these are things that’ll be added in future updates just as the Wii U release saw additional content, but with them being some of the less fun levels on offer, I’m certainly in no rush to see them.

Course World

In Mario Maker 2, you have three sources of online interaction, all found in the Course World menu: Courses, Network Play, and Endless Challenge. In the Courses screen, you can find the hottest new uploads, look at what’s currently popular, or even search for something in particular. Thanks to the game’s new tagging system, you’re able to find exactly what you want with incredibly little effort. With options available to filter levels based on style, theme, difficulty, region, and tag, and then sort them by either clear rate or popularity, there should always be something to play. Whether you enjoy puzzles, speedruns, or for some sick reason, underwater autoscrollers, Mario Maker 2 has you covered.

If you just want to play without worrying too much about the type of level you’re playing, the Endless Challenge has you covered. Replacing the original game’s 100 Mario Challenge, Endless sees you start with a limited number of lives to work through as many levels as you can for a high score. In the lower difficulties, this becomes a test of endurance, with it being incredibly easy to build up 99 lives and never run out. As you look to the harder expert and super expert however, it becomes a little more of a challenge. For those chasing the top spots, strategic skipping and life conservation become essential, on top of a certain expected skill level. While the 100 Mario Challenge was fun, Endless has me far more engaged than the original game ever did. Being somebody who frequents level on the normal difficulty, the 100 Mario Challenge felt entirely too unrewarding. I already knew I could beat 16 levels with 100 lives, there’s no unexpected victory, the only motivation being the now-absent Amiibo costumes. With Endless, I fell into the ‘just one more’ mentality. I know I’ll likely never see the top of the leaderboard, but I find some fun in seeing my high score go up and finding fun and creative levels along the way.

Perhaps my most mixed feelings of the game lurk within the Network Play options. With both coop and versus modes available against random users (playing with friends coming at a later date), the game again opens up to an unreal number of possibilities. Playing against other people is brilliant fun, just as long as the game isn’t running at the framerate of a Powerpoint presentation. With four players and a traditionally-Nintendo P2P online infrastructure, your experience will be as good as the people you’re playing with. At times, scoring those victory points was a case of sticking out the lag and waiting for the problem player to drop out. Other times, I’ve had completely fluid four player madness. If you can accept the good with the bad, you’ll have a great time. We can hope things will improve, but if you’re considering buying the game, you should expect things to stay as they are for the foreseeable future.

Coop is strange to me. Four people limited only to premade messages have to work towards a common goal of beating a level. If you die, you can respawn either from a checkpoint or by a remaining player in a bubble, just like the New Super Mario Bros multiplayer. I feel the enjoyment of this mode really comes down to the level you get; some are great with other people, and others not so much. When in versus, levels not designed for multiplayer become a brawl for who can work through these incompatibilities, but with other people you’re trying to support, it ends up feeling a little awkward. This amplified by the lack of proper communication, I almost wish Nintendo’s Switch Online app got a Mario Maker update. Almost. I can see the coop being far more fun once support for playing with friends is added, but as it is right now, it’s just kind of alright. If you crave human interaction without all the frivolous troubles of actual interaction, perhaps there’s a niche here for you.

Making the Switch

While the game may be fantastic in many ways, the transition from Wii U to Switch isn’t necessarily an easy one. Dropping the resistive touch screen of the Wii U gamepad in favour of the Switch’s capacitive screen in handheld mode, or no touch screen at all when docked, is something that will undeniably require a period of adjustment. Where anybody could jump into the Wii U version with no prior experience or knowledge, you’ll at first be stumbling in the dark if somebody passes you the Joy Con for some coop making; the instant intuitiveness of the Wii U gamepad just isn’t possible to recreate. To assist in this transition, Nintendo have made a good number of quality of life changes.

First, tiles are larger when making, with the option for both a zoomed in and zoomed out view when desired. This change is entirely logical when you lack the precision of the gamepad’s touch screen, sausage fingering four tiles at once being an ever-present possibility. Following this, the entire making process feels streamlined: no more shaking enemies for alternatives, now simply having to hold down on them. Again, when considering the game had to account for controllers being used for making, shaking enemies would’ve just ended up being an awkward mess. With everything clearly presented on a neat menu, you can see everything possible and access them easily. The menus containing course parts are separated into categories, with each category being composed of a number of rings, each ring having a number of parts. It’s delightful for docked play, being able to select the desired part in an instant, but a part of me yearns for the original game’s menu and the way it had everything shown at once. As it is now, it feels like I’m always having to look for a specific part, in oppose to having the menu open with all the options visible and a freak idea coming to me. It’s something some will prefer to the original, and something others won’t, but given the number of play styles they had to account for, I’d say they did a good job. That being said, if you’re planning on making in this game, I’d definitely recommend picking up a stylus. If you’re not fortunate enough to be in Europe or Japan where Nintendo shipped out their own, you can find them on Amazon from a number of retailers. While it still isn’t quite as good as using the gamepad, it’s a definite improvement in comfort and precision. I picked up this one for less than £10 and it’s done me well.

All in all, Mario Maker 2 is a fantastic game for both creators and players. With new tools, new game modes, and an eternal source of content (assuming your Nintendo Switch Online subscription is live), this is a game that will keep you occupied for as long as you want to play Mario. For the uncreative among us, I encourage you to check this out, you don’t need to be a maker to enjoy everything that is made.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/super-neptunia-rpg.1053/

My passion for the Neptunia series is something I don’t exactly hide. Since discovering Re;Birth1 in 2015, I’ve been hooked on the self-aware, fourth wall-breaking happenings of Gamindustri through the ages. With this latest entry scrapping the fantastic 3D battle system I’ve come to love, as well as the third dimension as a whole, does this game do enough to stand proud among its predecessors, or is it riding on the series name alone?

Being the first taste of fresh Nepticious goodness since Cyberdimension Neptunia in 2017, the good folks at Idea Factory International prepared a trailer to get you back up to speed with the main cast. Though I find them really quite unforgettable, it’s something I recommend checking out if perhaps you’ve only played one or two games many moons ago. For somebody new entirely to the series wanting to start here, it also provides the bare essentials for you to pick up much of the self-referencing throughout, but realistically I would recommend giving Re;Birth1 a shot before diving in here. As a remake of the first game in the series, you get a fuller introduction to the larger world and its inhabitants, providing a solid foundation of understanding you’ll be grateful for the further you get into Super Neptunia RPG.

Super Nep starts in a way completely unsurprising to me, packed with self-aware humour and the overused trope of an amnesiac protagonist, the ever-idle Neptune. Waking up in an otherwise-abandoned house by an unknown group demanding taxes, she soon joins this definitely-not-shady crew and proceeds to assist in their definitely-above-board activities. Hijinks ensue, Neptune takes far too long to realise she’s with the bad guys, she finds the other goddesses also without their memories, and they all come together. The overarching plot to me isn’t anything special, but I find it rarely is with this series. From game to game you come to understand each character, their motivations, and their actions, and through this knowledge you garner expectations, the game taking these and playing with them. Neptune is motivated by food and lacks any form of common sense. You expect her to do stupid things, but these activities are constantly warped and mocked in such a way as to remain amusing. Just as you think something is a little too predictable, the game either throws a curve ball or acknowledges the fact with a fourth wall break or something similar. At its core, the story, the charm, the humour; they’re all the Neptunia you know and love. The game has an incredibly warm sense of familiarity, starkly contrasting with the playful amnesia of the game’s cast.

While some things remain the same, others are quite clearly different. Perhaps the most obvious of these differences is the genre shift, dropping the third dimension in favour of a beautifully hand-drawn 2D platforming environment. From a solely visual standpoint, I was blown away starting the game for the first time. The world full of such vibrant detail, I felt inclined to stop and just take it in from time to time. Even looking back through screenshots, I find myself appreciating the designs all over again. It’s stunning—at least when it’s still. While each character, each background, each graphic; while each are so carefully and lovingly crafted, the gameplay holding them together is not. Super Neptunia RPG is a game lacking polish, and it isn’t something you’re likely to pick up on until you’ve played it.

Jumping into the world for the first time was an interesting experience. Once the initial environmental awe passes, the first thing you’re drawn to is movement. From a functional standpoint, the game controls fine. You navigate 2D areas, jumping and dashing your way through generally simple but fun platforming challenges. The controls are largely satisfying, but confuse me in the inability to use the D-Pad, especially given the analogue stick’s digital use. There isn’t a gradual speed increase, you’re either moving in a direction or you’re not; I can’t understand why the D-Pad isn’t available as a control scheme when it is so clearly better suited to the task. Moving past this and looking at movement itself, you begin to realise the game isn’t quite as pretty in motion as it is when you were taking in the sights. Though I can acknowledge this as a minor critique, I found movement animations far too snappy. With no transition from stationary to moving or jumping, these so frequently used actions feel jarring and unrefined. These are things you get used to after playing for a little while, but I find it an incredible shame that the player should have to get used to them.

Past the initial tutorials and into the city of Lastation for the first time, you start to find the game opening up, NPCs scattered around to talk to and accept quests from. A completionist at heart, I wanted to try everything I could; if there is a hunting quest among these, I always like to be clearing them naturally as I progress instead of having to come back later specifically for it. To this end, I talked to everybody and accepted everything. One quest wanted me to hunt an enemy, another wanted me to donate money, another find some items, and another talk to some NPCs. Everything felt relatively standard and by the book, something that isn’t necessarily a bad thing so early in the game. The dialogue and snippets of backstory for each NPC wanting my time kept me engaged and eager to seek out more to do, at least until I finished my first quest. Where each NPC will say a few lines to introduce their request and have something to say while you’re in the middle of it, completing it simply replaces their dialogue with “…”. Every NPC that has a quest; it feels as though the more I progress, the more the world is drained of life and charm. It’s fine, it’s minor, but adding a single repetitive line of “Thanks for helping me!” or even despawning the NPC, physically draining the world of life, would have felt more natural. I did enjoy the quests I could complete, but going back to the raw feeling of the game, it feels as though little consideration was put into their delivery.

As soon as you enter an area, you have access to most if not all of its available quests, regardless of whether you can actually complete them at the time. An early example of this is a quest given by a mother to find her four children and tell them to come for dinner. The game places three of these children in hidden but accessible locations, providing a small platforming challenge in a safe area, as well as encouraging you to explore the city. It feels as though the quest should be beatable given how it’s setup, the final child visible on the roof of a building. It feels as though there should be a way up there, like the game is trying to show you a neat trick or have you find a secret exit to the roof. None of this is the case, you’re just expected to return once you’ve gained the ability to jump higher. It’s frustrating in how it completely ruins an otherwise fun quest for me, having wasted my time in trying to beat it. Other examples of this I didn’t mind quite as much, such as a quest that wanted me to locate a book in an area I hadn’t discovered yet. Something like that at least hints it’ll be a while until you complete it, but clarity is something the game would have significantly benefitted from. Having quests appear as you acquire the items to complete them, or even saying explicitly you don’t have the right tools for the job, it’s as though the player is just expected to know as if they had a hand in creating it.

This lack of clarity is spread across many aspects of the game, leaving me quite frequently confused. First you have the game’s loading times; they aren’t fantastic, but as a whole they aren’t a dealbreaker. Where I find fault is in the ‘unmarked’ loading times, where the game doesn’t give you a loading screen, freezing in place while it does its thing—and this isn’t some infrequent occurrence, this is for the pause screen! I’ve timed myself waiting up to seven seconds for the screen to load, all with no feedback or progress. Granted it only appears to be the first time the game is paused upon loading a new area, but again, this is the kind of thing that should have been seen at some stage of testing. Perhaps worse than this are the game’s forced-choice selection boxes, giving you the illusion of free choice in the worst possible way.

Where games usually want you do make a choice, they either don’t give you a choice at all, or add some kind of dialogue to warp Option B into Option A. The original Pokemon Mystery Dungeon games used the latter of these options well, taking the opportunity to poke fun at your bad choice before putting you on track for the right one. Instead of this, Super Neptunia RPG simply doesn’t allow you to select the incorrect choice. At the start of the game, a defeated Doggoo wants to join your team, and you’re given a choice as to whether you want to allow it. I thought this meant I might encounter enemies at certain milestones that would join me to diversify my party or even provide skills, but when I couldn’t move the cursor off the “No” option, I couldn’t tell whether it was a bug or just incredibly poor design. I continued playing the game irritated with myself because I thought I had managed to screw up somehow, in complete disbelief the game would pull something like that. Only later when an enemy was actually recruited to provide you with a higher jump did I notice the cursor once again locked in place, this time on the “Yes” option. It’s bizarre and quite frankly a horrible design choice. Add to all of this an intimidating UI of small text and questionable navigation and you have a ball of frustration to work through before you can really find the appreciation for the story and characters that actually have a chance of keeping you hooked.

Combat in Super Neptunia isn’t a complicated affair. With each party member stood at a cardinal position, you select which character you want attacking by pressing the matching face button. X for the top character, A for the right, and so on. Each party member is assigned a single skill, with each skill being either physical or magical, and some also being elemental. The system is surprisingly interesting in how it encourages you to mix things up and be prepared for any assortment of enemies. In addition to this, you have four formations available, each one allowing for a different skill to be equipped. With the option to change formation mid-battle granting access to a new set of skills, on paper you have a genuinely interesting system. In reality however, what you have is an incredibly simple button masher. 

Straying from the series norm of turn-based action, battles in Super Neptunia play out in real time. As you wait, you get AP, which can then be burned to use skills. If an enemy is weak to the skill type, you’ll recover some AP after attacking. The depth of the combat system suddenly feels inconsequential when the battles begin to drag. With skills taking far more time than they probably should to start up and complete, you find yourself leaving battles on fast forward, mashing whichever attack is best suited against the enemies. There’s nothing to really motivate you to pay attention; even if you get low on HP, you can just pause the game and use a recovery item, these usable almost-instantaneously and with no AP cost. There are the makings of a fun system here, but are ultimately lost like so much of the game in minor frustrations and inconveniences.

I could go on and on about this game but really it boils down to this: Super Neptunia RPG isn’t something I can recommend to the vast majority of people, but it’s not to say there isn’t a good experience to be found. If you are patient, willing to overlook questionable design choices, and have the stamina to endure button mashing through almost every encounter, there’s a chance you may yet see the light. You might appreciate the classic Neptunia wit, the fun and well-dubbed cast, the beautiful scenery, and the ups and downs of the game’s story. If you think you’re that kind of person, I encourage you to pick up the Re;Birth trilogy while they’re on sale, and wait for this to fall below $20.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/tribit-x1-wireless-earbuds.1059/

Wireless earphones have always been an awkward affair for me. Never quite willing to drop huge amounts of money on big names like Bose or Sony, I find myself browsing the lower end of the market with mixed results. Be it poor build quality, an absurd overemphasis on bass, or just being damn uncomfortable, I’ve been through pair after pair, none managing to outlast nor outperform my budget wired set. Much to my surprise, the Tribit X1 Wireless Earbuds are different.

The box is simple and contains everything you need to get started: the earbuds, the charging case, an assortment of different tip sizes, a micro USB charging cable, and a to-the-point instruction manual. Pairing the earbuds for the first time is as easy as removing them from the case and searching for them with any bluetooth-enabled device. No mess, no fuss, no awkward holding down of buttons in a manner no human can be expected to remember. When you remove the buds from the case on subsequent uses, the buds will automatically reconnect to the device assuming it has bluetooth enabled and is in range. Messing with my phone, my laptop, and my Walkman, I faced absolutely no issues. Swapping between devices is relatively hassle-free, just having to select the X1s manually by navigating to the bluetooth settings.

Featuring a physical button on each bud as opposed to a more standard touch-sensitive area comes with its own set of pros and cons, and though perhaps to be expected, I feel them worth mentioning. The main strength of using a touch panel is also its main weakness: its sensitivity. They’re great for letting you just tap at your ear for the next song to play, to summon your branded voice assistant, or to stop your music altogether. What this also means is that you may be skipping songs and having Siri listening to you where you didn’t want if you happen to catch it. The X1s don’t have this issue; the cost is the tactile nature of its buttons. Where you would be able to use a single finger with a touch panel, you want to be using your entire hand here. With a single finger, you find the buds being pushed quite uncomfortably into the ear, where using a hand to holding it in place removes this issue. You won’t be hitting these accidentally, but you also need to be putting a bit of effort in to use them. Whether this is better or worse is a matter of preference. As somebody who usually has devices within arm’s reach regardless, it’s a nonissue for me, opting to use the devices themselves for this functionality.

With ‘true wireless’ earbuds, you have two completely detached earbuds with no wires to connect them. By design they’re exactly what I look for: extremely convenient and really quite liberating. There’s nothing finer for me than doing miscellaneous household activities with some great music and nothing to hold me down. Both of these earbuds having to connect as one device, the X1s function as a ‘master’ earbud and a ‘slave’ earbud. The master is the one that connects to your laptop or phone, and the slave connects to the master. If you’re always using both buds together, this system is flawless, but does impose a minor limitation in the fact the right earbud can’t be connected to a device by itself. What this means is that if you happen to lose your left earbud or if for whatever reason it stops working, you’re completely out of luck. Perhaps a quirk of this design also, it’s interesting to see the buttons on each earbud sharing the same functionality. Where you might expect hitting the left earbud twice to go to the previous track, and the right to the next, both will simply advance to the next track when hit twice. Similarly, both will pause and play the music when hit once. It isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker, but it’s a shame more couldn’t be done.

In my ear, the X1s really do feel fantastic. Though I don’t trust myself to listen to music while exercising outdoors, I found they do an incredibly good job in staying put despite my futile efforts to shake them loose. With three different tip sizes to be put on the buds, I’m fairly confident they’ll be a comfortable choice regardless of your ear size. The plastic body feels sturdy and well-built and has an overall feel of quality, definitely more so than their price may suggest.

When it comes to the audio quality itself, I have to say I was greatly surprised. As I mentioned previously, I too often find cheaper earphones overcompensating with egregious ear-melting bass, to the point of drowning out anything else. Where I listen to musicals and other lyrical audio, the words would be muffled to the point of ruining an otherwise-great track. The X1s are different. My song of choice when testing this kind of thing is Blumenkranz, the antagonist’s theme from hit anime series Kill la Kill. With its heavy bass, assortment of sounds, and softer-by-comparison lyrics, it’s great to find if any particular area is being overshadowed by another. With the X1s, everything is clear, and everything is in balance. Whether listening to musicals, game soundtracks, or classical music, everything sounds as it should, and all in all I’m really quite impressed.

With the X1s lasting around three hours on a single charge, and the charging case providing around five additional full charges, they’re perfect for long journeys or general day to day use. At their £35.99 price point, it’s hard to not recommend them. Between their convenience, sound quality, and build quality, they’re a truly fantastic product.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/retrotink-2x.1050/

If you wanted to pull out the SNES and play Super Mario World, it used to be simple. You’d grab your console, plug it into the mains, hook it up to the TV, and get right into it. As times and, perhaps more importantly, TVs, have moved on, this once-simple process has become painful. Whether struggling for the lack of compatible ports, horrid built-in deinterlacing, or an incompatibility with the common 240p signal, it’s often easier to just leave the hardware in the closet and grab something newer. The solutions to these growingly common issues tend to sway between keeping hold of an oversized CRT or finding yourself an upscaler, the latter of which we’re looking at today.

When it comes to viewing your games in the best light, there are two names you’re likely to see time and again: the Framemeister and the Open Source Scan Convertor (OSSC). Both of these are powerful tools rich with features and options, and both come with a hefty price tag of around $300 and $200 respectively. For those on a tight budget and willing to put up with input delay and miscellaneous quirks and qualms, you can also find countless cheap upscalers littering Amazon and eBay. Sitting somewhere between these options is the RetroTINK-2X.

Where the Framemeister and OSSC look to offer a multitude of settings and configurations, the 2X has one job and does it well: line doubling. Taking a 240p signal via one of component, composite, or S-Video, it outputs at 480p via mini HDMI; no mess, no fuss. The board itself is housed in two plexiglass plates you’re expected to assemble yourself. Though mine did come pre-assembled, it seems a simple enough process of putting pieces into place and securing them. With that, you’re good to go! Plug in your micro USB power supply, plug in the mini HDMI output, and plug in your input of choice and play away. The 2X requiring only one amp of current, it’s perfectly happy to be powered by a TV’s USB port, or really any kind of phone charger you might have lying around.

Though the device aims to keep things simple, it features two hardware buttons: one to toggle the display mode, and one to switch between inputs, both of these illustrated by small lights on the board. It’s worth noting that while you do have to manually select the input, it isn’t advisable to have multiple devices connected at the same time as their signal will still be processed to some degree. I noticed this when switching between S-Video and composite inputs recording footage, the image becoming far brighter with both connected together. As for display modes, I found myself pleasantly surprised despite the expectedly limited offerings.

The 2X mode does exactly what you’d expect, doubling the 240p input for a nicely scaled 480p output. Having tested it on a number of different devices, I had no issues in displaying this image across TVs and monitors, it also playing nicely with my capture card after I figured out the resolution it was outputting (720×480 for SFC and 720×576 for N64). While the image displayed fine, I did notice it was stretched to a 16:9 aspect ratio on one of my monitors, something to perhaps be aware of if the device you plan to use it with doesn’t have the option to force an aspect ratio. That being said, it’s a feature you’d expect of any modern TV.

Of everything on offer, the filter was the biggest surprise to me. As a general rule of thumb, I dismiss filters as sins against pixel purity, but with it being an option, it’s something I was eager to at least try. After some playing around it may be no surprise to hear I stand by my ideology, but I have found an appreciation in certain scenarios.

The video above goes through a number of Super Famicom games with and without the filter. Of the games played, Yoshi’s Island stood out to me. Its hand-drawn aesthetic is the perfect style of game to appreciate being smoothed over. To some degree, the same is true for Zelda: A Link to the Past when looking at the diagonal paths. Whether this will be of use to you will likely be a significant point of preference, but where I found the filter really in a league of its own was when using composite input.

Where with S-Video and component you have a clean picture with defined pixels, composite is naturally worse. Giving an overall muddier image, smoothing is a perfect way to hide these blemishes.

It’s something you can really appreciate if you lack expensive component cables, or struggle to find S-Video compatibility as I did for a number of consoles. Despite how common it may be in the US, it’s far more hit and miss in Europe. If you want the best quality out of the 2X, you should be aware of your consoles’ limitations. For example, my Ice Blue N64 doesn’t agree with S-Video where a grey variant would be fine, and PAL GameCubes replaced support for RGB Scart, something not supported by the 2X. If you’re in the US, this is nothing to be concerned about, but if you’re somebody just getting into high quality retro experiences, do your research. The 2X is the perfect device to act as a gateway into this brilliant world, and it’s interesting to see it has use even if you do later decide to upgrade to the more costly OSSC. Where the OSSC has plenty of features, it lacks ports for S-Video and composite input. Using the 2X’s passthrough display mode, the image is delivered in its original state to then be processed and upscaled by the OSSC. 

All in all, I think the 2X is a fantastic product. Easy to setup, easy to use, and with the added benefit of microseconds of added input lag, it’s the perfect device to get you started on your retro gaming adventures. What it lacks in features, it more than makes up for in nailing what it sets out to, filling a gap in the market at its $100 price point. It’s more expensive than the miscellaneous upscalers you might floating around the internet, but delivers a quality image with no compromise to the gaming experience. 

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/sefu-deluxe-switch-bag.1035/

Having owned a Switch since launch, getting it from A to B has always been a pain. When I first ran into this issue, I quickly grabbed my trusty Club Nintendo pouch I’d had since the early days of the 3DS; it protected the screen, which was my main point of concern. From here, my mum went out of her way to make me a pouch to keep it in. While it is adorable and even has a zip in the back to store my games, it sadly isn’t what I’m here to review. As much as I love my pouch, it only solved part of the problem: my Switch was protected but my Joy Cons were not.

Now to clear the air, you have plenty of options when it comes to protecting your console, many of them far cheaper than Sefu’s offerings, but for me, each failing to meet my needs. Each one bulked my bag to the point where I could carry my Switch and… Not much else. Between getting a new bag for my Switch and other things, and getting a bag designed for my Switch, and maybe other things, I found myself becoming more and more intrigued by the latter, ultimately leading me to Sefu’s Deluxe Switch Bag. Coming in at £130 ($160), the Deluxe Switch Bag is everything the title suggests: deluxe, and, well, for the Switch (and a bag if you want to be meticulous). Where this differs from the solutions I’ve looked into before is in the fact it isn’t just a case you’re going to throw in a bag and take with you, nor is it some grotesque neon green monstrosity aimed at your average ‘gamer’. Sefu have come up with something that, to be blunt, just looks like a bag, and it’s one I’m fond of.

As a whole, the bag is quite boxy in nature. Just wide enough and just tall enough to house the Switch, its leather exterior is rigid and feels sturdy. The interior padded with a layer of what Sefu describe as ‘Extreme Impact Foam’, and the Switch held into place thanks to a magnetically detachable cartridge holder, the contents feel secure and safe. Featuring additional padding and a soft lining on the back of the cartridge holder, it does well in keeping the system in place without damage or unnecessary constraints. Because of its delightfully detachable nature, it can be removed at any time to either ponder which game you want to play next, or simply use the bag for something other than the Switch. Though it’s advertised as being great for storing cameras, it’s not something I’ve been able to test, my best camera lurking within a budget smartphone. That being said, it did an excellent job of fitting the miscellaneous Nintendo handhelds I have lying around, albeit with a small game of Tetris required beforehand to evaluate just how much I could get in there. If you don’t mind the divider, it can even be used to secure other systems quite nicely without you having to carry a case around for them, my New 3DS snug to the point of it not falling with the bag held upside down and being shook. Naturally with it being designed for the Switch, you can expect a similar degree of snugness. 

Where I find myself drawing criticism, perhaps the only thing I could personally fault it for, is in its hand-crafted nature. On the positive end of that statement, each one feels unique and almost personal, but with that you have a certain degree of variance from unit to unit. With mine for example, the flap covering the bag’s interior doesn’t completely cover the interior, leaving thin gaps on each side. Ordinarily and on an optimistically sunny day, this isn’t an issue at all, but in your more expected British rain, I wouldn’t feel comfortable. Because of this, I find myself checking the weather before deciding which bag to take out, resorting to the mother approved tried and tested pouch if it isn’t looking so hot. This may be a fault of the design as a whole, or it may be a fault of mine in particular, but it is a shame, and a blemish on what I would otherwise consider to be the perfect solution to my unashamedly specific problem. 

Sefu’s bag isn’t for everybody, that much I feel the need to reiterate. Putting forward a product that is both stylish and functional, it finds itself appealing to a glorious niche of hardcore Switch fans who want to look good at their weekly rooftop party. Though it excels in what it sets out to do, the price point is just too high for its average potential buyer. As if to alleviate this, they do have cheaper options in the Switch Bag and Switch Bag Pro, but both lack the same premium feel I came to love. If you’re that perfect blend of Switch enthusiast and loose with your wallet, I cannot recommend this bag enough. Once you get past the stage of buying it, you have a product that will likely last until Nintendo’s next big hit. 

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/zanki-zero-last-beginning.1025/

Since the completion of the third Danganronpa game, its creators have been busy. Previously putting their name behind a whimsical tale of world destruction at the mere sight of panties, they continue their trend of wonderful end of worldliness to bring something new and creative, and yet true to each of its roots. 

Welcome to Garage Island

Zanki Zero has perhaps the most fluid transition from title screen to gameplay I’ve ever seen, the menu simply fading away, leaving you with a brief overview of the controls and a small area to explore. A deserted and ruined city by the sea, you find yourself chasing a fading image. Walking through the ruin, weaving down alleys until you find yourself in front of an open garage, and in it, a mysterious arcade machine.

This sequence excels in setting a desolate scene with its deliberate ambient and environmental choices. With the game jumping from this setting to a dark cityscape upon interacting with the arcade machine, you almost get a sense of being flung back into reality; you’re drawn into this world so brilliantly before the game gives you so much as a word to read. It gives you an initial set of mysteries to be solved, things you find are slowly chipped away at as you play as if to keep you hooked on that same sense of mystery from start to end. As the intro plays out, you witness a desperate Haruto Higurashi atop a bland and looming tower wallowing, before stepping into the abyss below. Much to both his surprise, and mine as the player, death is not what greeted him in the end. Where there should have only been dark, his senses are overwhelmed with light, water, and shortly after, the voice of a young girl. A familiar island, the one you had previously walked through, is his destination, and it’s here the story really gets started.

Introducing herself as Sachika, the girl takes you to what will soon be your base of operations: the garage, where the game’s remaining cast are waiting to meet you. A total of eight people including Haruto and Sachika, each one is characterised by a deadly sin, with Sachika referred to as ‘The Original Sin’. While these titles aren’t mentioned until later in the game, I found them to be a unique insight into predicting how characters might act and develop early on. Haruto, for example, is revealed to be the ‘Editor of Sloth’ in the first chapter. From this, you begin to cast judgement: is he slothful, a sinner, or is he a victim of others’ slothful tendencies? Thinking down both paths, you force yourself to consider both an optimistic and pessimistic answer to each question, and as the truth slowly comes to light, you find your way of thinking influenced for the next character to be explored. It’s a brilliant mechanism in its simplicity, in how it plays on your preconceived notions and accumulating impressions.

The gameplay loop from chapter to chapter is nothing remarkable. In the garage, you’re introduced to several of the game’s founding ideas: you are the last eight survivors of humanity, you are all clones, and that you should follow the tasks provided by the mysterious cartoon Extend TV. The cartoon and its strange presenters Sho and Mirai stay with you throughout the story and act as your primary source of information, perhaps the most important of this being that as clones, they can be revived endlessly. The caveat however, is that death is no longer optional, rather an cruel inevitability.

Every End…

As clones, our sinful cast’s lifespan is limited to a meagre 13 days. In this time, they go from children, to adults, to middle-aged, and finally to seniors, before dying of old age. Upon death, their bodies dissolve into white sand, leaving behind a pile of their belongings and more importantly, their X Key. By taking this key back to the Extend Machine, the previously mentioned arcade machine stashed away in the garage, they can be revived; it’s here where my favourite mechanic really comes to light.

Zanki Zero is much unlike any other RPG I’ve played. The single truth I’ve always held so closely, the micromanagement and effort propelled by the fear of death, of missing out on experience and losing progress; all of this is reworked and disfigured in a way so contrary to the genre fundamental. All of this comes from being revived by the Extend Machine, and the possibilities that lie in Shigabane. To be revived, or as the game describes it, extended, you need points. Points are accumulated for various activities, the main two being exploring new areas and defeating enemies, but to reduce this cycle down to gathering points until you die of old age, before extending and repeating, is to do it an incredible disservice. Shigabane are your incentive for death; think of each one as a bonus that can be applied to a character upon being extended. What’s so brilliant about these is how you get them, and how drastically it can affect how you play the game.

Put simply, your characters adapt to survive. You died because Monster X clawed you? In your next life, you might take less damage from Monster X and claw attacks. You died carrying too many items? In your next life, you might be able to carry more. You died as a child? In your next life, you may live another day before transitioning from a child to an adult. As a system, it’s not one I agreed with at first. It felt as though the game was fighting against me, enemies doing too much damage, the aging process seemingly always killing somebody as each day passed, but as I began to adapt to this myself, so too did the game’s cast. As I entered a new area, I made it a priority to have my party killed by the most common enemy as preparation; I wanted to explore, to experience everything the game had to throw at me. The game drove me into a mindset of suffering as means of preventing suffering later, and to see just how resilient to this harsh environment I could make my party. The requirement of points to extend limits this process, making it overall far more strategic than it otherwise may be. Do you use up all your points killing and extending one character to have a single monster, leaving the rest of your team vulnerable when your solo force eventually falls? Do you distribute your deaths to create a team that can handle the common threats? Or do you simply accumulate points and only use them when death catches you off guard? As you progress and get more Shigabane, each extend costs more and more points, making these choices more difficult. With the option of extending without the effects of your Shigabane for your new lifetime costing a fraction of what you would otherwise have to pay, you always have some degree of fallback for when your plans go off course.

To some extent, the game gives you an ultimate failsafe in Sachika. While she too can die and be extended in the same manner as the other characters, she is unique in that she doesn’t age. What this means for your adventuring is that as long as you keep her healthy, you’ll always have a way out. You can always push on just that little bit more safe in the knowledge a complete party wipe-out, the kind that painstakingly forces you to continue from your last save, can so often be avoided with foresight. You have the freedom to die knowing you have her as your trump card. 

Into the Ruins

Dungeon crawling in Zanki Zero is fairly basic, and whether that’s a positive or a negative will depend entirely on what you want from the game. The world laid out as a grid, you’re able to move in each cardinal direction, with a pointer available to inspect items around you and certain areas. Everything is just about as you’d expect; the map is filled automatically as you walk, puzzles and traps litter the world, and there’s a plethora of things to uncover, enabling a vigilant player to enrich the overall narrative. Where the game tries to be interesting is in two key areas: survival meters and combat.

As a whole, survival meters are a huge negative for me. Forcing miscellaneous and unwanted micromanagement, you often find them unbalanced in a way as to pad out otherwise-trivial games with menial and repetitive activities. Does Zanki Zero break this trend? I’m sad to say it does nothing revolutionary in this respect, and much of what I dislike is still present. For each character, you need to watch their stamina, stress, and bladder. Needing the toilet leads to an increase of stress, an increased stress level reduces your stamina faster, and your stamina reaching zero means your health will gradually be reduced. On top of this, replenishing one meter will often have an adverse effect on another; to recover stamina you might drink water, which naturally will make your character more desperate for the toilet. Using the toilet in a rundown building might make your character more stressed, it’s a balancing act that you’ll likely either love or hate. While the way I describe it is largely negative, but it’s not without merit. Where it excels is in fitting with the rest of the game. It’s awkward, it’s a system very much against you as the player, it almost wants you to fail, to force you to pay more attention to it and plan. This planning and strategy is at the core of what makes the game so fun and interesting despite containing a few otherwise-irritating features, and this is highlighted further in the harder difficulties where the world is at its harshest. With everything against you, every small victory feels like a triumph, you get an incredible sense of gradual and consistent progress.

Combat is about as simple as you can get in a dungeon crawler. Enemies move around the map in real time and attack you when you’re in their range. Each attack has its own range and cooldown, and learning these is the key to succeeding. Instead of focusing on high levels and outrageous skills, Zanki Zero tests your dungeon crawling, observation, and patience. It forces you to be constantly aware of your surroundings and encourages a thorough job scouting the area, the game once again rewarding the prepared. The bosses of each area are where the game tries to be creative, despite the relatively few options it provides to you as the player. While you can dumb it down to attack, dodge, wait for your attacks to recharge, and repeat, bosses try to mix things up. Whether they show off a new attack type for the first time, allow you to utilise traps, or even feed you information on how best to handle a given enemy through inspecting elements of the environment, each one felt grand. Combining puzzle solving, analysis, and patience, they stand as genuine barriers on harder difficulties.

If combat and survival meters really aren’t something you enjoy, the western release features the addition of a new difficulty setting, completely disabling enemy encounters and all survival aspects. With this, you can appreciate the game for its environments, exploring and puzzle solving your way through its interesting storyline. While I wouldn’t recommend starting on this difficulty for the vast majority of players, it does well in allowing just about anybody to experience and enjoy a good chunk of what the game has to offer, and with New Game+, those same people can go in a second time slightly stronger, perhaps more confident to try something different.

Overall, Zanki Zero is interesting. Though the writing and character motivations can feel a little muddled towards the end of the game, I found myself thoroughly enjoying both the narrative being presented and the one I uncovered by analysing my surroundings.  It’s hard to pin down exactly the type of person who will have a good time with it, but if you’re in the mood for a wild ride of post-apocalyptic and sometimes-unintentionally nonsensical drama mixed with a dash of puzzle solving, give it a shot. 

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/yoshis-crafted-world.1005/

The Yoshi series as a whole is something that’s always enthralled me. Growing up with the GBA port of Yoshi’s Island, the casual explorative platformer series has managed to keep me interested through both the good times and bad. After harbouring mixed feelings for both Yoshi’s New Island and Woolly World, I find myself once again eager to explore, hoping to be charmed and captivated in the same way the series first caught my eye.

A Whole New World

Opening with a short cutscene, the game begins with a peaceful Yoshi society, this time lazily gathered around the legendary Sundream Stone. Eager to claim the stone’s fabled power to grant wishes for himself, Baby Bowser suddenly appears raring for a fight. After an intense round of tug of war between the jealous junior and our party of friends, the stone is pulled apart, its five Dream Gems launched across an unknown world. Intent on finding the gems before Baby Bowser can, the Yoshis set out on a new quest in this foreign land.

I feel there’s only so much I can say here; I doubt you’ve come to the game for a particularly deep or intense storyline, though that’s an avenue I’d personally be interested in seeing Nintendo go down. What the introduction does well in is highlighting what’s to come. You have the bright colour scheme, a myriad of Yoshis to choose from, a new visually stunning art direction, and of course, the brilliant duo that is Baby Bowser and Kamek. With these glimmers of radiant hope, the game set my expectations high, and it really didn’t disappoint.

Launching into the first level, the same one featured in the free eShop demo, you quickly begin to see what’s changed from a mechanical standpoint. Having played Yoshi’s Island quite recently, I found myself immediately taken aback by two things: movement and eggs. As a whole, the game feels fluid and responsive, the controls something that can be picked up in a matter of minutes. In an attempt to keep things moving and minimise downtime, the game also does well in streamlining certain things such as swallowing enemies, the egg conversion now automated instead of having to crouch. It defines itself as a unique entry to the series without straying far enough from its roots as to remove what made it great so many years ago. I found it incredibly satisfying to play, but only when jumping back to the SNES version of Yoshi’s Island did I realise just how different it is, and by no means do I think this a bad thing. The game is slower, but in what feels to be an intentional way; you have time to see the multi-layered levels, time to pick up on the small details and hidden secrets that make the Yoshi series so fun. With the new ability to shoot into both the foreground and background, you come to appreciate the change of pace.

The strangest quirk to irritate me as I started ended up being the fact your eggs don’t carry over from level to level as they did in older games, but the more I played, the more I came to appreciate the reasons behind this choice. Enemy placement feels far more meaningful and well-paced as to provide both ample ammunition to progress and subtle hints of what’s available to hit nearby. You also have areas with few eggs and challenges that require them, adding a thin veil of challenge to an otherwise largely laid back game. As you progress, you begin to make better use of what the levels give you, and as a whole it goes a long way in crafting an enjoyable experience.

Yoshi’s Crafted Collectathon

While the challenges of Yoshi games have often been found in collecting everything the game has to offer, Crafted World takes this to new unparalleled heights. Each level has a number of visible flowers as you’ve likely seen in previous games of the series. The amount varies from level to level with some lying around, some hidden behind floating clouds, and others obtained through small challenges. You then have three bonus flowers for each level; one for collecting 100 coins, one for collecting the 20 red coins, and one for finishing the level on maximum health. Finally, you have four flowers on offer for optionally completing the course in reverse and finding mini Poochies, with one flower being awarded for each of the three found, and the last being a reward for completing the stage in a set time. Once you’ve beaten each level in a world, you’ll then be tasked with extra missions to seek out souvenirs, with each one successfully found rewarding you with an additional flower. That’s everything. While you do need flowers to unlock new worlds and progress through the game, the levels are structured in a way as to encourage exploration and discovery without forcing it on you. It’s balanced well to the point of unlocking worlds being satisfying without feeling gated behind unnecessary walls. 

At first glance, the sheer volume of flowers is overwhelming and as I played the first level, I found myself incredibly irritated by the design as a whole. After all, if you want to get everything, you’ll be playing through each level three or four times: once for the normal completion, once in reverse, and once more for each souvenir. Having already played the first level via the demo, I had already appreciated the sights, I had already spotted the cows, and I’d already seen the small details on show as you go through in reverse. What I had however forgotten was how much I loved doing it in the demo; it’s almost amusing to me how my first impressions of the game’s collectibles was jaded not through any fault of the game itself, but by my completionist attitudes in full force when playing the demo. Despite each level being packed with content, and despite there being an incredible depth of gameplay that can shift by simply focusing your attention on different areas of the level, I found myself burned out by something that could have so easily been solved by carrying over save data. Though I thoroughly enjoyed experiencing everything each level had to show, I do feel it negatively impacts replayability to the game as a whole. Once you’ve seen everything, you really have seen everything, and I just can’t see myself coming back to play it any time soon. It’s not to say I won’t come back to it again a few years down the line, or going through the odd level again with different friends, but otherwise it’s something that’ll be be sat collecting dust.

The two player options are however worth mentioning for a way to keep your experience fresh. Where I usually meticulously scour levels for every secret and collectible, everything is different when I pull a friend in. Gone are the methodical searches, one of a friendly journey or competitive death battle standing in their place. The degree of the coop play is relatively simple: you get two Yoshis and you play through levels as normal. You can swallow your friend to carry them, and one Yoshi can ride the other and play as a turret. It’s brilliant fun all in all, and does well in providing a platform for players of any skill to appreciate. The only fault I could possibly pull from this is the lack of option to mix and match game play styles. While the classic play the one I generally recommend people try, mellow mode acts as a perfect bridge for a parent to introduce their child to gaming. Giving you wings to flutter infinitely, as well as each enemy providing two eggs in oppose to one, the game is made easier and its challenges further trivialised. It becomes less about the level design choices and more about experiencing the music, the brilliant art direction, and the world of the game. Though it isn’t something for me, its inclusion is definitely not a bad thing, especially in a series like Yoshi.

It’s difficult to deny that Yoshi’s Crafted World is by most standards an easy game, but I think it’s brilliant for it. So rarely nowadays do we get the chance to explore and discover in such a relaxed and mellow setting. The game is forgiving to the degree of me feeling comfortable jumping off ledges from time to time just to make sure I haven’t missed anything; it isn’t something I could say of a Mario game, nor any other platformer. For every Dark Souls of its genre, I feel we should be crying out for a Yoshi. A game you can sit down and uncontrollably smile at, a game you can enjoy without pressure or stress. For anybody looking for a good time, or even just a gentle break from reality, Yoshi’s Crafted World is a must buy, and one I can wholeheartedly recommend.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/gamesir-vx-aimswitch.994/

Taking the AimSwitch out of the box for the first time had me quite excited to get stuck in. The design, put quite simply, is the left half of your average keyboard. Featuring 34 keys that can each be reconfigured via a free to download companion app, you’re given a lot of freedom out of the box. For me, my hand rests comfortably with my thumb on space, middle three fingers over the arrow keys, and my little finger on tab. The beauty of having half a keyboard present means that no matter your hand size of preference, you’ll likely be able to find a comfortable way to operate it; pair this degree of customisation with the adjustable wrist rest and from a comfort and longevity standpoint, you’re onto a winner.

Sadly, I can’t sing such high praises for the device’s build quality. At first glance, the key caps quite oddly caught my eye. Having owned a Razer Blackwidow Chroma for a few years, they jumped out to me for their faded appearance, almost as if transparent to allow light through. It’s a fairly standard appearance for a device with some kind of lighting, and yet the AimSwitch has no such thing. Seeing this, I re-read the manual and searched online in hopes of being wrong, but to no avail. I even tried putting one of the key caps onto my keyboard and lone behold, they are transparent. Though perhaps an odd criticism, it speaks to the lack of care and detail on show.

The switches themselves come from the lesser known company TTC. After doing a little research, I found myself unsurprised to see these largely a budget choice. Despite this, they still provide a reasonably satisfying click when hit, albeit with an accompanying echo I can’t say I’m overly fond of. To me, the whole thing simply feels cheap. While there is some satisfaction in the mechanical keys, the novelty soon wears off when switching between it and something better built. This might not be something you’d notice if you don’t typically use mechanical keyboards, the feel of its mechanicalness potentially outweighing the relative lack of quality, but for anybody accustom to anything remotely well-made, you’ll likely be left disappointed.

Coming bundled with a gaming mouse to complete the setup, I feel myself prepared to say more of the same. It’s fine, but the chances are you already own a better mouse. While the cable feels pleasant, the overall design is garish. Needlessly pointy with vanity spikes surrounding the mouse wheel, I felt it lack any kind of weight. I can generally forgive that as personal preference, but the overall outlook is one matching its companion: cheap. My biggest issue lies in the buttons you rest your fingers on and their oversensitivity. As I played, I found myself clicking where not intended, the clicks themselves feeling shallow and dissatisfying. Fortunately, you’re able to use the keypad with other USB mice, but it’s a little sad to see part of this set simply wind up useless.

Beyond the build quality, GameSir set out to appeal to a niche market with the AimSwitch’s console compatibility. This means anybody with a PS3, PS4, Xbox One, and even Switch, can in theory enjoy the same precision and input as their PC brethren. At least in theory.

Getting the AimSwitch up and running with the Switch is a simple affair. Plug the USB receiver into the dock, enable wired pro controllers via the system settings, and you’re good to go! When you turn on the AimSwitch, it’ll quickly connect to the system as a Pro Controller, with the mouse acting as the right analogue input. WASD controls your left analogue, the arrows are your D-Pad, and the other buttons are scattered within reach. The default setup is good enough to get you started, but you’ll likely want to switch it up to something more suited to your needs. Thankfully, this is a relatively simple task.

The accompanying G-Crux app for Android and iOS is essential to get the best out of the AimSwitch. Using the app, you can wirelessly update the device’s firmware, and more importantly, remap the keys to your liking. Each of the 34 keys can be set to your liking, on top of the mouse’s left and right click, and the two buttons on the side. With the ability to store up to five configurations on-device to be switched between on demand, you have the freedom to play as you want. Though the app is a little rough around the edges, it does well in providing a simple and easy to use interface. With the ability to name buttons with their relevant function, you’re able to quickly see what you’re remapping as you tweak your configurations.

Using the AimSwitch in-game is the thing I’m perhaps most conflicted on. I want to like it; I really want to like it, but I just don’t think it works. Despite the cheap feel of the keys, I enjoyed having the keyboard option for my system, and I feel this part of the device works really well. If you have a game like Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists where you’re mostly moving through menus, the flat half-keyboard is surprisingly comfortable and pleasant to use. If you have games that don’t rely on the right analogue stick, you may find some surprising utility in being able to play casually with one hand. It’s beyond this scope where I struggle to recommend it, and it’s hard to really put the blame on the device itself. Mapping the right analogue stick to a mouse is a flawed idea at best. When you use a mouse, you do so for the precision, for the responsiveness and fluid movement. When your mouse is mapped to the right analogue stick, you lose almost all of this. For any kind of precision, you need to mess with sensitivity in-game, you need to tweak the mouse settings using the G-Crux app, and despite my best efforts, I simply couldn’t find a way to make it work. The camera was too jarring, too slow, moving in too great an interval; the previously easy to use app suddenly became frustrating as I changed settings, disconnected, connected to the console, tested the settings, and repeated. With both the default settings and officially released configurations failing to impress me, I can see why the AimSwitch doesn’t have much in the way of console competition.

Overall, I’m left with a mixed bag of feelings for GameSir’s VX AimSwitch. Featuring quite frankly impressive customisation options and a unique offering in a remappable keyboard for consoles, it falls short in too many areas to fully recommend. With the core idea falling flat, paired with the cheap look and feel, I can’t recommend it for its current RRP of $99.99. What I’d love to see is GameSir look at what went well here and come back with something that builds on those strengths: a remappable keypad for consoles is in my eyes something with a lot of potential. With nicer switches, better key cap design, and even including an analogue stick for proper camera control, they could have a genuinely unique and brilliant product. Despite their shortcomings here, I’m eager to see what they bring in the coming years.

You can find this review in full at GBAtemp.net:
https://gbatemp.net/review/nelke-and-the-legendary-alchemists-ateliers-of-the-new-world.989/

The Atelier series is one I’ve come to be fond of despite only dabbling in one or two of its western releases. Tasked under varying circumstances with completing requests in a set time limit, the games often see you gather materials through foraging and JRPG battles, before synthesising them into something greater with alchemy. This loop of gathering, creating, and fulfilling goals is satisfying and keeps you engaged as your tasks gradually become more difficult and the areas you have to explore grow. Roll on Nelke and her legendary group and we find ourselves with something similar, and yet not quite the same. 

An Aristocrat’s Tale

The premise of Nelke isn’t all too difficult to grasp; an excitable aristocrat sets out for the small village of Westwald as its new administrator in hopes of developing it into something bigger. Alongside this, you have a secondary motivation in wanting to uncover the secrets of the sage relics, the legendary Granzweit Tree rumoured to be hidden nearby. Finally, adding the fact the lord of Westwald is Nelke’s father, you have a constraint to keep the game somewhat grounded, as well as an excuse to weave in the series-standard timed tasks.

Of course, Nelke won’t be alone on her adventure. With her from the start are her maid Misty and the village chief Knoss, but it doesn’t take long for your party to expand as alchemists and familiar faces from the franchise’s history appear one by one through a myriad of botched alchemy and mysterious teleportations. The setup is undeniably simple, but does what it needs to in providing a stage for what is ultimately a grand celebration, largely reminiscent of how Fire Emblem Heroes used gateways to other worlds. Even not knowing the majority of the characters present, I found myself having a great time interacting with them and seeing them develop; I can only imagine how happy somebody who played the first game back in 1997 would be to see the its protagonist Marie again. 

Town Life

Though the game takes a while to get going as you battle through full-screen images bombarding you with tutorial information for the first hour or so, there is a genuinely satisfying experience to be found. The general gameplay loop can be broken down into two parts: weekdays and holidays, with a turn being made up of one of each. To avoid being sent back to the capital, Nelke is given tasks from her father to complete within a certain number of turns, and it’s here you’ll generally find yourself thinking ahead. One early task for example asks you to remain in profit for three consecutive days. With this in mind, you want to sell expensive goods. To sell expensive goods, you’ll want to synthesise them. To synthesise them, you’ll want the right materials. To get the right materials, you’ll want to setup your farms and gathering squads. On top of that, you’ll also want to watch how much you spend in labour and building costs; you need workers and you need to get things setup, but you also need balance. The early tasks introduce you to the supply chain and making profit as a whole in a surprisingly organic way given the direct approach taken for the initial tutorials. Once you’re free of them, you really find the game opening up and leaving you to decide what type of growth suits you best, and how you want to achieve it. It’s definitely a slow game at first, but sticking with it provides you with a fantastic satisfaction as you begin to see your efforts bear fruit, bombs, and whatever else you decide to make. 

Moving onto holidays, you come to a more relaxed setting. Gone is the balancing of books and maintaining of profits, new strategy arising from how you choose to split your time. During each holiday, your time is divided into 12 segments, where they can be spent either visiting your townsfolk or exploring a variety of areas for items and enemies. Visiting people will enhance your relationship with them, giving the characters you like a bit more screen time, as well as potentially triggering events and providing you with bonus tasks. Exploring on the other hand rewards you in a far more direct way, providing you with an additional means of gathering certain materials, or fulfilling the requests of villagers that may have asked for specific monsters to be slayed. As an idea, I quite enjoy how this is split. With each visit consuming two segments and exploration going for as long as you still have time, or reach the end of the path, you’ll find yourself adjusting your strategy throughout the game depending on what your current situation requires. Where I feel the game falls somewhat short however is in the exploration itself, and how it’s completely detached from what I would consider to be a modern series staple. 

Instead of moving through a dungeon area with roaming enemies and gathering spots, you find yourself automatically walking across a linear path. As you walk, your team will stop at random to pick up items or encounter enemies, your only input being whether they walk or run. Even after entering an encounter, I found little reason to interact when combat can be trivialised to the point of putting it on auto and letting my team win for me. This part of the game finds itself in an awkward middle ground where it’s not sure who it wants to cater for. On one hand, it tries to look back at the fans coming back for their dose of Atelier charm and throws them a fairly generic JRPG battle system and the general idea of material gathering from previous games; on the other it tries to streamline the process to fit better with the gameplay loop you’d expect in a town development game. Playing it, I found myself wanting either more or less. Were this to be streamlined further to a completely automated activity, I’d be able to return to the weekdays sooner and focus on a part of the game I genuinely enjoy. Were it to further embrace the series’ roots and go for fuller dungeons and progression in this respect, it’d have room to make a far more unique title and embrace traditional JRPG tropes in a natural way. In what feels like an attempt to bring two audiences together, I can’t help but think both are made to suffer.

Atelier for the Ages

Nelke and the Legendary Alchemists is an interesting game if nothing else. Celebrating a brilliant 20 years of history, it succeeds in bringing familiar faces together, tasking the player with building what feels like the setting for another game entirely. From the building designs, to the vibrant artwork, to the casual and slightly repetitive background music, everything feels so perfectly in place. While it saddens me the game doesn’t give you the option to run through your creation and really experience your work as you have so many towns before it, it goes to further emphasise this is an Atelier game like none before it. Whether it’s one for you is difficult to say, but for anybody looking for some laid back town development, accompanied by charm and vibrance by the bucket load, it is a must buy.