Hello gentle readers, and welcome to the SwitchArcade Round-Up for August 26th, 2019. Today, we’ve got reviews of the recently-released SUPERHOT and the not-so-recently-released Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling. There are a couple of news items, but nothing too earth-shaking. The same can be said for today’s pair of new releases, unfortunately. But we do have some sales to check out. Ah, the comfortable blanket that are the daily sales. They’ll only occasionally let us down. Let’s head into the woods!
News
‘Rise: Race the Future’ Receiving Update With Sensitivity Settings and More
VD-Dev’s Rise: Race the Future is a pretty fun racing game with a few issues that held back the experience. At least, that was my opinion when I reviewed it. That said, it seems I wasn’t alone in my criticisms as the upcoming update for the game sounds like it was tailor-made to address those concerns. The update will be hitting in September and includes the following: HD Rumble with sensitivity settings, stability and steering sensitivity settings for each and every vehicle, improved AI to reduce the CPU’s tendency to rear-end you, and touchscreen controls for the UI when playing in handheld mode. The developer is apparently also considering adding a multiplayer mode. Well, that all sounds great to me.
Yacht Club Games to Host Special Presentation on August 28th
Are you curious about the state of Shovel Knight: King of Cards? Wondering about the ninja throwback action game Cyber Shadow? Curious what Yacht Club is up to besides those things? Me too. While I’m not sure if we’re going to be getting any specific information about that stuff, we’ll likely be hearing about some of it when Yacht Club Games hits YouTube and Twitch with Yacht Club Games Presents on August 28th at 11:00 AM PT. You can watch it live on Yacht Club’s YouTube or Twitch channels, or just hit SwitchArcade up the next day for a summary. The world is full of choices. This is one of them. But not an important one, like what to have for lunch.
Reviews
SUPERHOT ($24.99)
These days, movies about superheroes dominate the box office charts. It seems like a recent thing, but let’s be honest: action movies have often been about superheroes in all but name. Sure, Riggs in Lethal Weapon may not have worn colorful tights and called himself Captain Dog Food, but no human could do what he did on a regular basis and come out alive. That’s just one example, but action movies have long been rife with these kinds of quick-thinking, impossibly-fast heroes who can disarm an entire room full of guys with assault rifles with nothing more than a stapler in their hand. How the heck do they do that? You’ll have to figure that out when you play SUPERHOT.
SUPERHOT is a first-person action game with a few striking differences. The first one that pops out is its visual style. You wander through shaded white environments where enemies are faceless red figures, and interactive objects are solid black. There’s a lot of detail in the environments if you stop and look, but it’s all quite abstract. Who are you hitting? Why are you killing these people? Are they even real people? Who knows? The story plays around with this, with an initial framing that posits your activities as a game with the game. You’ll eventually have just about all the context you need to make some educated guesses, but the plot is smart enough to keep certain things vague in order to preserve some mystery.
But SUPERHOT‘s look is just the most obvious way it stands out. When you start playing the game, you’ll be introduced to its real gimmick. In this game, time only moves when you do. Well, almost. Really, time does move when you’re standing still, but it does so extremely slowly. The idea is that you have a lot of time to stop and assess everything around you at any given moment, enabling you to have what would look like superhuman reflexes to those observing at normal speed. You can dodge bullets, jump over cars heading towards you, pluck guns out of the air as they fly out of someone’s hands, and so on. Things start off quite simple, but the game soon becomes a succession of scenes that leave you wondering how you’re going to get out of this particular fix.
The rather loose framework the story works in allows the game to put you in a variety of scenes that could well make up a highlight reel from some of the most popular action movies in history. In one level you’re seemingly a traitor in a heist who decides to take out all of his buddies and keep the loot for himself. In another, you’re in an elevator with three gunman and a door that will soon open to even more hostile company. And so it goes. I don’t want to explain too many of these because it’s fun to see what kind of mess you have to work your way out of next. When you finally beat each situation and watch your replay at normal speed, you will feel like a complete bad-ass.
The only fly in the ointment is how short it is overall. It doesn’t take much longer than a couple of hours to work your way through all of the story missions. There are some extra modes that unlock after that which will extend the game for those who seek it, at least. There’s an endless mode where you have to fend off an infinite number of enemies and see how long you can survive. You start off that mode with just one level to play, but more will unlock as you go. There is also the challenge mode, where you have to accomplish such tasks as making your way through the story stages with nothing more than a katana. Don’t worry, it can stop bullets. If you’re really good, anyway. If you’re like me, you’ll swing, miss, and get shot. Oh well, at least restarts are quick. If you get into these extra modes, you’ll get quite a bit more out of SUPERHOT.
SUPERHOT runs very well on the Switch, which probably isn’t that surprising given its relatively light requirements on computers. The brief levels and variety of interesting challenges are great for handheld play, if that’s your style. The developers have implemented optional gyro controls, which I know some players will really appreciate. Ultimately, this is an incredibly fun game with a lot of fresh ideas whose only real shortcoming is in its brevity. It’s incredibly replayable, but if you’re the sort of person who only plays through a game’s story once and calls it done, you aren’t likely to be satisfied with this game. Otherwise, this is a really easy game to recommend. It’s fun in a very pure video game kind of way, and I’ll admit I am a complete sucker for that sort of experience.
SwitchArcade Score: 4.5/5
Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling ($14.99)
There’s something about a good pro wrestling video game that seems to pull in just about anyone, regardless of whether they actually like wrestling or not. In terms of pure hours clocked, you could have called my Nintendo 64 a pro wrestling game console and you would have been at least halfway correct. Everyone loved to make their own wrestler and get in on the action, even if they weren’t any good at it. And I think that’s because wrestling as a concept lends itself well to silly chaos, the sort of thing that is snorted at in serious fighting games but certainly appeals to a wide audience. Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling embraces that chaos, and if nothing else is leagues beyond the WWE game available on the Switch.
This game falls somewhere between a proper wrestling game and a fighting game. You’re battling in rings, performing grapples, can bounce off the ropes, and so on. On the other hand, your goal is not to pin your opponent but rather to wear down their life meter. The rings are placed in a variety of locations, and the game goes pretty wild here with such settings as a magma-filled volcano or a river. That can make going outside the ring a bit risky, but you’ll likely want to in order to pick up the occasional items that are dropped there. Those different settings can also add extra hazards in the ring, such a tornado or slippery ice patches.
There are a few different match types you’ll run into. There’s a standard one-on-one battle, tag-team matches of two-on-two, and battle royals where up to six wrestlers battle each other to see who will be the last one standing. In single player mode, you’ll work your way through seven tournaments where you’ll battle the CPU in those match types. You can use one of the pre-made wrestlers or create your own. When you start the game, only a few pre-made characters will be available, but each successful tournament win will unlock a new one along with a variety of extra parts for the creator mode. You’ll also earn coins that are used to buy more parts in said creator mode. While the creator mode isn’t as exhaustive as some games, you can make a lot of fun characters with it.
As far as multiplayer options go, you can play on one console, through local wireless, or online. You can choose which kind of match you want to play, and that will determine how many players can join in. The six-player battle royal matches are where it’s at, if you can find people to play with. That’s one problem, unfortunately. This game has been out for a little while now and the online community for it seems to be nearly dead. When you find other players, it works pretty well at least. Better to gather up people locally, especially given how easy this game is to pick up for even total beginners.
The gameplay is simple, but it works. You have a grapple button, a jump button, a strike button, and a special button. You can block with the shoulder button. While some wrestling games give you a variety of moves corresponding to different directional presses, here you really just have a small handful. From a grapple you can throw the opponent at the ropes or go into one of two moves by pushing the other buttons. The special button can produce three different results, and down attacks will come out three different ways depending on which part of the opponent’s body you approach. It’s probably a little too simple for its own good at times, but it’s not going to overwhelm anyone either.
Chiki-Chiki Boxy Pro Wrestling doesn’t have a lot to offer the solo player, but playing through the tournaments and messing around with the create-a-wrestler mode is a decent enough side dish for the multiplayer main course. The core here is the multiplayer, and if you’ve got the friends or family members to fill out the seats, I could see this becoming a regular favorite for a while. It’s fun, it’s silly, and it’s easy to pick up. I wish it were a little more substantial, but until someone does something better this is the go-to pro wrestling game for the Switch. Not exactly a hard victory, but hey, any port in a storm.
SwitchArcade Score: 3.5/5
New Releases
Pacific Wings ($4.99)
This vertical shoot-em-up originates in the mobile market, where it’s free with ad support. It’s not bad in that context, but it’s also not very good. It’s clearly biting off of Capcom’s 194X series pretty hard, but it’s neither the first nor the last shoot-em-up to do that so I won’t hold that against it. More of a problem is just how, for lack of a better word, cheap it feels. It’s also as slow as molasses in January. On a system that has a wide array of excellent games in this genre, many of which are in the same pricing neighborhood as this, it’s hard to recommend something so utterly perfunctory.
Deadly Fighter 2 ($3.99)
As you can probably guess from the price, this isn’t exactly Soul Calibur 6. Originally released on Android, Deadly Fighter 2 is an action game for one player only. The title screams fighting game, but it’s actually one of those games where your character has to fend off attacks from multiple enemies charging in from all angles. Like most games that were originally free-to-play, there’s a currency-grinding element to the game where you need to unlock, buy, and upgrade various boosts to stay ahead of the difficulty curve. It’s pretty simple and gets old fast, but I guess it’s cheap if nothing else.
Sales
Well, that’s a healthy list of new sales, if nothing else. I’m not super-thrilled about any of the games in there, but you might be. The big names in the outbox are Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Mortal Kombat 11. The latter will probably be on sale again before long, but it’s hard to say if we’ll be seeing a discount on the former again anytime soon. It still hasn’t had any major performance improvements in its updates, so if you do buy it, do it knowing that the game still has a lot of issues in its Switch form.
New Games on Sale
SmuggleCraft ($1.99 from $9.99 until 8/30)
Mekabolt ($3.99 from $4.99 until 9/9)
Blade II – The Return of Evil ($20.00 from $25.00 until 9/3)
Super Arcade Soccer ($4.89 from $6.99 until 9/12)
Deponia ($29.99 from $39.99 until 9/12)
Jewel Fever 2 ($3.99 from $4.99 until 9/9)
Croc’s World ($3.99 from $4.99 until 9/9)
Crayola Scoot ($2.99 from $29.99 until 9/4)
Grand Prix Rock ‘N Racing ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/12)
Deadly Fighter 2 ($2.99 from $3.99 until 9/13)
Dead Dungeon ($1.49 from $4.99 until 9/3)
Event Horizon ($1.79 from $5.99 until 9/3)
Riddled Corpses EX ($6.99 from $9.99 until 9/3)
Tardy ($2.99 from $9.99 until 9/3)
Xenon Valkyrie+ ($6.69 from $9.99 until 9/9)
Demetrios ($4.99 from $9.99 until 9/9)
Mars or Die! ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/31)
Clue: The Classic Mystery Game ($20.99 from $29.99 until 9/1)
Super Inefficient Golf ($3.99 from $7.99 until 8/31)
Otto ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/31)
Parallel ($2.99 from $9.99 until 8/31)
Adrenaline Rush – Miami Drive ($2.99 from $3.99 until 9/15)
Miner Warfare ($6.39 from $7.99 until 9/3)
Shadow of Loot Box ($4.79 from $7.99 until 9/3)
FullBlast ($3.59 from $5.99 until 9/9)
Tetra’s Escape ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/9)
Super Destronaut DX ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/9)
Last Day of June ($9.99 from $19.99 until 9/10)
Midnight Deluxe ($2.99 from $4.99 until 9/9)
Tumblestone ($4.49 from $14.99 until 9/16)
The Bridge ($2.99 fom $9.99 until 9/16)
Sales Ending Tomorrow, Tuesday, August 27th
Animal Hunter Z ($4.99 from $9.99 until 8/27)
Bingo ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/27)
Blazing Beaks ($7.49 from $14.99 until 8/27)
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night ($31.99 from $39.99 until 8/27)
Caterpillar Royale ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/27)
Friday the 13th: Killer Puzzle ($9.99 from $19.99 until 8/27)
FunBox Party ($0.99 from $1.99 until 8/27)
Green Game: TimeSwapper ($0.29 from $2.99 until 8/27)
IN-VERT ($4.49 from $4.99 until 8/27)
Mad Carnage ($0.99 from $4.99 until 8/27)
Mech Rage ($1.99 from $9.99 until 8/27)
Mortal Kombat 11 ($41.99 from $59.99 until 8/27)
Paper Wars: Cannon Fodder Devastated ($0.99 from $9.99 until 8/27)
Ping Pong Trick Shot Evolution ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/27)
Red Game Without a Great Name ($0.29 from $2.99 until 8/27)
SlabWell ($4.99 from $9.99 until 8/27)
Super Ping Pong Trick Shot ($2.49 from $4.99 until 8/27)
Superola and the Lost Burgers ($1.99 from $5.99 until 8/27)
Swaps and Traps ($5.39 from $8.99 until 8/27)
Tactical Mind ($0.99 from $2.99 until 8/27)
The Gardens Between ($7.99 from $19.99 until 8/27)
Whipseey and the Lost Atlas ($5.39 from $5.99 until 8/27)
That will wrap things up for today, friends. It’s a bit quiet today in terms of news, but I’m sure that won’t last. This week has a number of new releases to look forward to, and there are generally a few releases that come out of nowhere, so we’ll have to see where everything goes. I’m just happy the weather around here is starting to cool off a little. This summer has been brutal. At any rate, I hope you all have a great day, and as always, thanks for reading!
